Euro­pean mar­ket lea­der in mana­ged WiFi streng­thens posi­ti­on as lar­gest WiFi plat­form in Euro­pe through merger

hot­splots GmbH and Wifirst Group join forces as the lar­gest WiFi plat­form in Europe

Berlin/Paris, Janu­ary 18, 2024 — HOTSPLOTS, the WiFi pro­vi­der foun­ded in 2004 by Dr. Ulrich Mei­er and Dr. Jörg Ontrup with over 17,500 HOTSPLOTS loca­ti­ons in Ger­ma­ny, will beco­me part of the Wifirst Group with imme­dia­te effect. Both com­pa­nies are thus streng­thening their posi­ti­on, stra­te­gic ori­en­ta­ti­on and advan­cing the Euro­pe-wide expan­si­on of ser­vices and net­work infra­struc­tu­re. With Ber­lin-based hot­splots GmbH, the Euro­pe-wide Wifirst Group is gai­ning an estab­lished and extre­me­ly suc­cessful tech­no­lo­gy and ser­vice part­ner for sta­tio­na­ry and mobi­le WiFi hot­spot solu­ti­ons and is expan­ding its lea­ding mar­ket position. 

The mer­ger of the two com­pa­nies signi­fi­cant­ly streng­thens their respec­ti­ve core busi­nesses and ser­ves as a cata­lyst for syn­er­gies and growth.
Marc Tai­eb, foun­der and CEO of Wifirst, empha­si­zes: “The mer­ger of HOTSPLOTS and the Wifirst Group is a stra­te­gic move that will enable us to mutual­ly streng­then our com­bi­ned geo­gra­phic foot­print and open up fur­ther mar­ket seg­ments in Euro­pe. HOTSPLOTS’ spe­ci­fic exper­ti­se in embedded WLAN tech­no­lo­gy in par­ti­cu­lar will sup­port us in this.”

Sascha Schaub, Mana­ging Direc­tor of hot­splots GmbH, sees gre­at oppor­tu­ni­ties for both com­pa­nies in this tran­sac­tion: “The fact that HOTSPLOTS is now working with the lea­ding Euro­pean pro­vi­der of mana­ged WiFi infra­struc­tu­re fills us with pri­de and opens up new oppor­tu­ni­ties for us. By working with a team of more than 300 peo­p­le across Euro­pe, we can par­ti­ci­pa­te in major natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal ten­ders and pro­jects and joint­ly expand the qua­li­ty and sca­le of the ser­vices we offer.”

Wifirst, foun­ded in 2002, is a B2B tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons pro­vi­der spe­cia­li­zing in the pro­vi­si­on of mana­ged WLAN infra­struc­tures for com­pa­nies. With more than 300 employees in 30 count­ries, the com­pa­ny is a pio­neer of the “as a ser­vice” con­nec­ti­vi­ty model.

Wifirst was iden­ti­fied as one of the 40 most pro­mi­sing French tech­no­lo­gy com­pa­nies in 2023 by the French Minis­try of the Eco­no­my and is offi­ci­al­ly one of the com­pa­nies that can beco­me world-class. Wifirst’s Euro­pean expan­si­on stra­tegy has sin­ce been sup­port­ed by the French Minis­try of the Economy.

At the same time, the HOTSPLOTS brand has suc­cessful­ly estab­lished its­elf on the mar­ket with its modu­lar tech­no­lo­gy plat­form and inno­va­ti­ve WLAN solu­ti­ons. The use of soft­ware deve­lo­ped in-house enables HOTSPLOTS to gua­ran­tee maxi­mum fle­xi­bi­li­ty with maxi­mum data secu­ri­ty and the best per­for­mance. In 2023, the com­pa­ny recei­ved a Euro­pean patent for an opti­mi­zed pro­to­col and band­width manage­ment for the par­al­lel use of dif­fe­rent Inter­net connections.

The HOTSPLOTS brand and the 45-strong team will con­ti­nue on their suc­cessful cour­se, with hot­splots GmbH remai­ning head­quar­te­red in Berlin.

> Down­load the press release (PDF, ger­man & english)

Cont­act infor­ma­ti­on — Wifirst
Sarah Bat­toue
+33 7 85 73 45 82
sarah.battoue@wifirst.fr

Cont­act infor­ma­ti­on — HOTSPLOTS
Sven Mot­sch­mann
+49 30 29 77 348–82
marketing@hotsplots.de

About Wifirst
Wifirst is the euro­pean lea­der in mana­ged WiFi for pro­fes­sio­nals. The ope­ra­tor deploys and ope­ra­tes high-per­for­mance, secu­re and sus­tainable “as a ser­vice” con­nec­ti­vi­ty solu­ti­ons. Its know-how and tech­no­lo­gies appeal to IT decis­i­on-makers from the lar­gest com­pa­nies and public orga­niza­ti­ons (Accor­Ho­tels, Havas, The French Minis­try of the Army, Nor­au­to, The Ascott, etc.). Wifirst is pre­sent in the United King­dom, Spain, Ita­ly and Ger­ma­ny and curr­ent­ly covers 29 count­ries. In 2023, Wifirst joins the Next40: a pro­gram from the Minis­try of Eco­no­my which iden­ti­fies the most pro­mi­sing com­pa­nies of the french tech eco­sys­tem. For more infor­ma­ti­on: www.wifirst.com

About hot­splots GmbH
hot­splots GmbH has been ope­ra­ting as a WiFi pro­vi­der sin­ce 2004. The more than 17,500 acti­ve hot­spot loca­ti­ons in Euro­pe include sta­tio­na­ry hot­spots in cities and com­mu­ni­ties, hotels, cli­nics, youth hos­tels, stu­dent dor­mi­t­ories and at public bus stops as well as a lar­ge num­ber of mobi­le hot­spots in trains, buses and trams for public trans­port and long-distance tra­vel. The HOTSPLOTS WiFi solu­ti­ons offer safe­ty by means of VPN rou­ting, intel­li­gent band­width manage­ment, fle­xi­ble access and report­ing opti­ons. Cus­to­mers from public trans­port and tra­vel bene­fit from a fast vehic­le-land con­nec­tion at their mobi­le hot­spots. HOTSPLOTS takes over the tech­ni­cal and legal ope­ra­ti­on of the net­works, sup­pli­es Inter­net con­nec­tions or SIM cards or also pro­vi­des tem­po­ra­ry WiFi hot­spots for events. Fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on can be found on the web­site: www.hotsplots.com.