The global wireless local area network (WLAN) market registered a year-over-year growth of 20.7 percent to reach $1.35 billion (excluding WLAN NICs) and suffered a drop of 5 percent quarter-over-quarter in the first quarter of 2011, according to a report by research firm IDC (News - Alert).

The report showed the enterprise WLAN market achieving continued strength although growth was moderated a bit with a 20.3% year-over-year revenue increase, while the market declined by 8.8 percent.

"The continued strength in the WLAN market in the first quarter of 2011 was encouraging with all regions and both the enterprise and retail-class market segments making a contribution," said Rohit Mehra, Director, Enterprise Communications (News - Alert) Infrastructure, at IDC. "The tremendous momentum behind smart mobile devices and their continued uptake in the enterprise for business applications are driving enterprises to move forward with upgrades, extensions, and replacements of their wireless infrastructures."

According to report, the retail-class WLAN market continues to stabilize from previous quarterly declines, and grew a strong 21% year over year to reach $751 million in 1Q11. Sequentially, the retail-class segment declined 2.8%, but that was after a seasonally strong 4Q10.

Yet the dropping prices and increased consumer interest in networked home entertainment applications will continue to support this segment going forward, says the report.

Cisco's (News - Alert) enterprise WLAN revenue grew by 20.7% year-over-year but declined by 14.4% quarter-over-quarter in 1Q11, while Aruba registered an exceptional year-over-year growth of 85.7% in 1Q11, including OEM revenues.

According to IDC, Cisco's Linksys (News - Alert) consumer division lagged the market with WLAN revenue growing 7.2% year-over-year, and was down 5.9% quarter-over-quarter.

However, for 1Q11, HP's WLAN revenue grew less than the enterprise WLAN market at 14.4% year-over-year and declined 14.0% sequentially over the previous quarter.