JiWire study dodges the big question: How many Wi-Fi hotspot users are there?
Wi-Fi ad network JiWire has published a study on roaming Wi-Fi users demographics and behavior.
The takeaway from the PDF-format report: Wi-Fi users are, as you might expect, wealthier and spendier than average. There’s a strong business traveler demographic. Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch make up nearly 100% of the non-laptop audience for Wi-Fi. 38 percent of hotspot users have made a purchase over a wireless network.
But contrary to the coffeshop stereotype, far more Wi-Fi hotspot users connect from hotels and resorts, not cafes or airports. The breakdown is 55% hotel or resort, 27% airport, 10% cafe, 8% somewhere else, such as a cruise ship or public transit.
Still, there’s a gaping hole in JiWire’s report: How many Wi-Fi users are there? JiWire happily gives out its own count of 20-plus million unique visitors per month, observed on the 30,000 networks worldwide for which JiWire serves ads. The report includes a colorful chart that says in the first six months of 2009, the number of Wi-Fi users grew 18.5 percent. But from how many to how many was that growth? It’s the first number a businessperson would want to know about the Wi-Fi ad market.
JiWire is being honest in that backhanded manner of tech startups. They don’t mention the total size of the market because they don’t know what it is. The 18.5 % growth stat, they confirmed to me, comes from their own network.
But how much of the Wi-Fi ad market does JiWire own, and what’s the total size of that market? JiWire’s report says, basically: “We don’t know.”
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About the Author, Paul Boutin
Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.