This IDC study provides Western European WLAN equipment shipment and revenue data for 2004 and comparisons with 2003. Shipment and revenue shares are provided for network interface cards (NICs) and infrastructure by country and vendor for the first half of 2004. Shipment and revenue data for embedded solutions are not included in this study. Technologies covered in IDC's definition of WLAN are 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, and dual-band solutions. IDC started to include data for wireless switches at the start of 2004.

A geographical split is included for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K.

"During the second half of 2004 the residential market continued to take the largest share of WLAN revenue. Compared to 2003 this segment was the clear driver of the revenue growth and by the end of the year it accounted for 59.6% of the total revenue. At the same time the enterprise segment experienced a healthy growth of 22% from 2003 to 2004," said Evelien Wiggers, senior research analyst at IDC's telecommunications and networking group.