As consumers piled into shops on Black Friday, major stores saw a dramatic increase in traffic across their wi-fi networks.
Research from Devicescape revealed big week-on-week spikes in wi-fi connections in top brands; video game retailer Game saw a 71.2 percent increase in wi-fi connections.
BHS, Topshop and JD Sports saw increases of 58.9 percent, 56.1 percent and 30.3 percent respectively.
John Lewis saw a rise of 23.7 percent and the Apple Store saw 21.5 percent more connections.
By contrast, supermarkets saw relatively minor increases in wi-fi activity, with Tesco seeing 10.5 percent more connections and Sainsbury’s seeing 4.8 percent.
Indicating the relative immaturity of the American-imported Black Friday in the UK, spikes were less dramatic than across the Atlantic. 20 brands in the US saw week-on-week increases of over 100 percent.
The move onto wi-fi comes as consumers increasingly hunt for discounts online, and a growing number of shops offer wi-fi as a service to allow consumers to use their mobile devices in-store.
