Handhelds accounted for 35 percent of all hotspot connections in 2009, up from 20 percent in 2008, and are forecast to account for fully half of them by 2011, according to market research firm, In-Stat,. The research firm estimates that the hotspot usage on the whole will increase 47 percent in 2009, bringing the total number of connections to 1.2 billion. A report by JiWire estimates that during the first half of 2009, the number of Wi-Fi hotspots around the world grew by 9 percent.
According to In-Stat research, WiFi-enabled devices such as game players, personal media players and cameras are going to see a sharp increase between 2009 and 2013, rising from 108.8 million to 177.3 million.
