How large is the market, by segment if possible, for wireless point of
sale? This includes any merchant selling goods or services in a
location where access to a traditional telephone or Internet service
is not available or prohibitably expensive: a)Mobile Merchants
(Weekend vendors, travelling vendors); b)Venues where bringing the
service or goods to the customer allowing them to pay by credit card
would increase sales (golf courses, arenas, ski resorts); c)Mobile
workforce (plumbers, electricians, landscapers, delivery
services-anywhere a merchant is at a remote location and would benefit
from taking credit cards on the spot; d) # of home based businesses;
e)landline replacement of credit card terminals in new retail
establishments

<According to the Yankee Group the market for wireless point of sale
terminals in North America will grow to 1.1million units by 2004.
http://www.sasktel.com/about_sasktel/news_room/2000_news_releases/bell_canada_and_sasktel_invest_in_soft_tracks_a_leading_provider_of_wireless_point_of_sale_solutions.html

According to the Yankee Group?s 2001 report, the current number of
users of wireless POS devices will increase by a factor of ten over
the next six years to half a million.
http://www.lipmanusa.com/news/motient.asp

According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and RetailTech
Magazine, 17% of retailers are currently using wireless point of sale
solutions and 38% plan to use it in the next two years.
http://business.cisco.com/prod/tree.taf%3Fasset_id=73876&ID=44745&ListID=44691&SubListID=44751&public_view=true&kbns=1.html


------------------------------------------------------------
According to the Direct Selling Association there are 11 million
direct sales people in the U.S.
http://www.directsalesjournal.com/PubPec/list.asp?ID=2


-------------------------------------------------------------
According to Gartner Data Quest there were 59.8 million mobile workers
in the U.S. in 2001. Table 2-1 gives a breakdown of the number of
workers by type.
http://www.siventures.com/portfolio/pdf/070202/Wireless%20Data%20Applications.pdf

According to a report by John Burtzloff (2002) there will be 47
million mobile workers in the US by 2003. These are mainly small
business owners who travel for business and want to offer credit and
debit card payment systems to their customers.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,299600,00.html

According to a report by Forrester Research there are almost 50
million mobile workers in North America, including field service
technicians, employees of utilities and government, transportation
workers, field sales representatives, order fulfilment and parcel
delivery workers.
http://www.diversinet.com/press/2003/PR082503(Edvance).htm

According to InfoTech there were 41 million mobile workers in the U.S.
in 2002 and there will be over 67 million by 2006.
http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:3h6kL5pr8gwJ:www.norstan.com/SalesSheets/pdf/InShNetworkBusiness.pdf+%22million+mobile+workers%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8


According to greensheet.com, there were 92 million mobile workers in
the U.S. in 2001, including plumbers, landscapers, taxi and limousine
drivers, and outdoor market merchants.
http://www.greensheet.com/cprofiles/wildcardwirelesssolutions.html

According to Bloor Research, there will be 105 million mobile workers by 2006.
http://www.silicon.com/comment/0,39024711,11034392,00.htm

-------------------------------------------------------
Number of home based businesses.
According to International Data Corp there are approximately 20
million home based businesses in the U.S.
http://www.businessknowhow.com/homeoffice/whyrent.htm

According to the National Association of Home Businesses there are 18
million home based businesses in the U.S.
http://www.ase.org/media/newsrel/home_office.htm


--------------------------------------------------
According to the Census Bureau there are 25,942 performing arts,
spectator sports and related industries establishments (table 2a).
There are 3,881 spectator sports venues. There is also a breakdown of
the type of venue racetrack, dog track, baseball, football, ice
skating.
Skiing facilities number 379.
http://www.census.gov/prod/ec97/97s71-sm.pdf

According to BestCourses.com as of January 15 2002, there were 17,120
golf courses in the U.S.
http://www.bestcourses.com/html/q_a.html

-------------------------------------------------

World market
According to Way Systems, the mobile POS market is predicted to grow
to 300 million devices by 2005.
http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:24LXXNXJNFIJ:www.ftpartners.com/pdf/Financing_08.01.03_Way_Systems.pdf+%22mobile+merchants%22+million&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

100 million mobile merchants worldwide do not have POS terminals.
http://www.wayinc.com/

----------------------------------------------------
Number of POS terminals currently in use.
According to Nevada Business Journal there are currently 10 million
POS terminals in the U.S.
http://www.nevadabusiness.com/05_02/technology.html>


<Search strategy:>

"wireless point of sale" "million terminals"
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22wireless+point+of+sale%22+%22million+terminals%22

pos "million terminals" wireless
://www.google.com/search?q=pos+%22million+terminals%22+wireless&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=30&sa=N

"million pos terminals in the us"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22million+pos+terminals+in+the+us%22

://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22mobile+merchants%22+million
"mobile merchants" million

<Hope this helps.>

---

Request for Answer Clarification by amps1954-ga on 19 Jan 2004 16:11 PST

does this include what Gartner calls "mobile-enabled transactions."?

---

Clarification of Answer by belindalevez-ga on 20 Jan 2004 01:09 PST

<According to Gartner ?m-commerce (mobile commerce)
A category of commerce that includes any purchase transaction
completed using a wireless device, such as a cellular phone, PC or
personal digital assistant. M-commerce includes paying for a
subscription to get content "pushed" to a mobile device, purchasing a
product via a mobile device or using such a device to obtain a service
for which a fee is charged. Purchases that are researched or arranged
via a wireless device, but completed and settled by other means, are
classified as mobile-enabled transactions.?
http://www3.gartner.com/6_help/glossary/GlossaryM.jsp

My interpretation of the Gartner definition is that mobile-enabled
transactions are not completed at wireless point of  sale terminals. 
An example of a mobile-enabled transaction would be a transaction that
was arranged via a mobile phone but paid for with a check mailed to
the vendor.

This report looks at the market for mobile-enabled machines.
http://www.mda-mobiledata.org/resource/pdfs/deloitteresearch/mobilizing_the_machine.pdf>

<Hope this helps.>

The data was helpful. The hard numbers I was looking for are the POS
devices not as you say "My interpretation of the Gartner definition is
that mobile-enabled transactions are not completed at wireless point
of  sale terminals.
An example of a mobile-enabled transaction would be a transaction that
was arranged via a mobile phone but paid for with a check mailed to
the vendor.
Overall, there was a lot of useful info but just not about the
quantity of devices deployed-my fault in the wording of the answer.