Hang in there, it’s Thursday. Here are some need-to-know numbers to end your day.
Kids these days, right? Drinking home-brewed kombucha in their trendy apartment rentals downtown. But not so fast. We may have millennials all wrong. In fact, data from the National Association of Realtors found that people in their 20s and 30s make up the largest segment of home buyers in the states. And many — 49 percent of millennial buyers, to be exact — are looking for homes in the suburbs. So beware Baby Boomers: millennials may be coming for your three bedroom, two bath oases.
And while millennials may be bolstering the housing market, one industry is not so happy with them: the cork industry. For 400 years, cork has been the go-to choice of material for bottling wine. But the presence of a certain chemical compound sometimes found in cork was causing wine to spoil — not very frequently, but enough for wine makers to start turning to twist tops and aluminum screws. As The Atlantic writes, a recent report by the Wine Market Council found that millennials are more swayed by packaging and trying new products when selecting a wine. Something they’re not as loyal to: whether or not their wine bottle has a cork.
Millennial or not, there’s a good chance that we all share a certain frustration: how undependable the Wi-Fi on airplanes and in the airport has become. That’s a big concern for companies like Boingo and Gogo, who reported earnings on Thursday. For Gogo, who owns an enviable 80 percent of the in-flight Wi-Fi market, the worry is that recent complaints will mean being dropped for a competitor. For Boingo, which provides service in airports, smartphones may mean more customers will opt out of paying for Wi-Fi while they wait to fly.
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