Posted: 15th Mar, 2008 By: MarkJ
Global roaming experts at iPass have released the latest statistics from their twice-yearly '
Mobile Broadband Index' survey, which revealed that London is still
Wi-Fi Hotspot capital of the world with 1.3% of the global total and an annual growth of 156%.
The iPass Mobile Broadband Index (formerly the iPass
Wi-Fi Hotspot Index) summarizes 3G '
Mobile Broadband' and
Wi-Fi Hotspot usage data collected by iPass across its base of approximately 1,000,000 quarterly users and 90,000 Hotspots:
1. London 1.3% (156% Annual Growth)
2. Singapore 0.5% (72%)
3. Tokyo 0.4% (118%)
4. New York 0.4% (38%)
5. Chicago 0.3% (5%)
6. Houston 0.2% (21%)
7. San Francisco 0.2% (14%)
8. Dallas 0.2% (10%)
9. Munich 0.2% (90%)
10. San Jose 0.2% (39%)
However, the USA remains top of
Wi-Fi equipped countries, commanding 51% of the global total, trailed by the UK on just 13%. The average time spent online via a
Wi-Fi Hotspot in the USA was 88 minutes compared with 86 in the UK:
1. United States 51% (60% Annual Growth)
2. United Kingdom 13% (121%)
3. Germany 10% (243%)
4. Switzerland 4% (122%)
5. Netherlands 3% (106%)
6. France 3% (233%)
7. Japan 2% (50%)
8. Australia 2% (190%)
9. Belgium 1% (137%)
10. Brazil 1% (259%)
Naturally North America also retains the top spot for '
Regions of the World' with a global total of 51% and a growth rate of 61%. Meanwhile Europe is busy catching up, with 40% of the total and a staggering growth rate of 142%!
The Asia Pacific region follows in a distant third with 7% of the global total and a respectable 77% growth rate. Further behind still is Latin America on 1% of the total and a 133% growth rate.
Cafés were the dominant location people used when accessing
Wi-Fi Hotspots, accounting for 11% of usage, followed by Restaurants on 4%. However the annual growth rate for Cafés was just 33%, while Restaurants grew a stunning 217%.
Finally, the statistics for 3G Mobile Broadband data usage revealed that the average monthly data transferred per user during 2007 was 164.4MB (MegaBytes), an increase of 25% over the 12 month period. Usage grew from 151.7MB during Q1-2007 to 189.6MB at the end of Q4-2007.
Typically such figures do not represent the entire market and have not been broken down into country specific figures, which is a shame because we suspect that the UK's 3G data usage growth rate would have been much higher. Recent price cuts and service improvements appear to have had a huge impact on uptake.