Over 10 million WiFi hotspots worldwide by 2018

The number of WiFi hotspots around the globe, which stood at 4.2 million in 2013, is expected to skyrocket to 10.5 million by 2018, according to ABI Research.

The number of WiFi hotspots around the globe, which stood at 4.2 million in 2013, is expected to skyrocket to 10.5 million by 2018, according to ABI Research.

Currently, Asia is home to the vast majority of these hotspots (68.9%), far ahead of Latin America (12.3%), Europe (9%) and North America (8.7%). China alone has some 620,000 WiFi hotspots. By the end of 2013, Brazil already had nearly 500,000, many of which were put in place in anticipation of the massive arrival of foreign visitors for the FIFA World Cup this summer.

Furthermore, ABI Research estimates that the volume of mobile data exchanged worldwide will increase from 23,000 petabits (10 to the power of 15 bits) in 2013 to 190,000 petabits in 2018.

A hotspot is defined as any access point that enables network access over the WiFi protocol, for free or for payment, from a PC, smartphone or tablet.