Home to 453,347 people, Wilmington, NC is the 119th-largest of the 387 US metropolitan areas. It helps to know the ground before spending a marketing dollar; the numbers below are the ground.
The metropolitan statistical area is centered on Wilmington, North Carolina.
Home values tell their own story; here the median is $362,400, 9 percent above the national figure. Household income runs $76,471 here, which is 5 percent below the national figure.
72.1% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, 7 points above the US share. Work: 226,459 in the labor force, 4.6% unemployed (about the same as the US share). The median resident is 45.4 years old, 6.5 years above the national median. The share of adults with a bachelor's or above is 39.4%, 4 points above the US share.
Compared with North Carolina: income is 6 percent higher than the North Carolina figure, home values are 25 percent higher than the North Carolina figure, and business density is 22 percent denser than the North Carolina figure.
There are 13,302 employer businesses in Wilmington, NC. That is 29.3 establishments per 1,000 people, 17 percent above the national figure. Home-services trades account for 829 of them (6.2% of all establishments, 1 points above the US share).
| Category | Locations | Per 100k people | Local ÷ US share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Highway, street and bridge construction | 9 | 2 | 0.61× |
| Concrete foundation and structure contractors | 19 | 4.2 | 0.51× |
| Self-storage facilities | 37 | 8.2 | 1.25× |
| Roofing contractors | 47 | 10.4 | 1.16× |
| Automobile dealers | 59 | 13 | 0.79× |
| Other specialty trade contractors (paving, asphalt, fencing) | 63 | 13.9 | 0.93× |
| General freight trucking | 86 | 19 | 0.46× |
| Child day care services | 92 | 20.3 | 0.70× |
| Grocery and convenience retailers | 119 | 26.2 | 0.75× |
| General automotive repair | 121 | 26.7 | 0.90× |
| Beauty salons | 124 | 27.4 | 0.93× |
| Dentists | 188 | 41.5 | 0.87× |
| Electrical contractors | 211 | 46.5 | 1.59× |
| Lessors of real estate (all) | 211 | 46.5 | 0.97× |
| Personal care services (all) | 229 | 50.5 | 0.90× |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 232 | 51.2 | 1.31× |
| Landscaping services | 257 | 56.7 | 1.37× |
| Physicians' offices | 264 | 58.2 | 0.76× |
| Legal services | 273 | 60.2 | 0.95× |
| Restaurants and other eating places | 1,114 | 245.7 | 1.13× |
Index: local share of all establishments divided by the US share; above 1 means the trade is more common here than nationally.
More common here than nationally: electrical contractors, landscaping services, plumbing and HVAC contractors and self-storage operators. Electrical contractors lead at 211 establishments, 1.6 times the US share. Under-represented categories: general freight trucking, concrete contractors, road and paving contractors and child day care services. General freight trucking show the largest gap, 86 locations, about half of what the national mix would give. Neither crowded nor thin: specialty trade contractors, general automotive repair and dentists.
Per resident the densest are restaurants at 245.7 per 100,000 people, then legal services and physicians' offices. The most numerous of the listed trades: restaurants with 1,114 establishments, then legal services (273) and physicians' offices (264). Taken as groups, the strongest relative to the US mix are the home-services trades (1.3 times the national share) and the weakest are trucking, storage, real estate and road construction (about 77% of).
Advertisers in electrical contractors, landscaping services and plumbing and HVAC contractors should assume high competition on Google Ads and put equal weight on the free real estate: an accurate Business Profile, steady new reviews, and pages that match the local searches word for word. For general freight trucking, concrete contractors and road and paving contractors, the opportunity is coverage. Few competitors means the business that shows up for every nearby town and every variant of the search collects most of it. A median age 6.5 years above the national median means a larger share of customers who still start with a Google search and read reviews before calling, so the search-plus-reviews stack earns its keep. High homeownership (72.1%) means a large pool of people who pay for their own repairs, replacements and yard work, which favors the home-services trades in this market.
A short list of services chosen for this market; the full range is on the services page.
A clean, fast site with one job: make the call happen.
Retargeting so a visitor who left the site keeps seeing the business.
Replies to reviews, written and posted for the business.
Search campaigns built around the searches people in Wilmington, NC actually type, with the geography fenced to where the work is.
Keeping the Business Profile complete, current and answered so it earns the map placement.
Ranking for the service-and-town searches without paying per click.
Wilmington, NC has 453,347 residents (US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimate), ranking 119th of 387 metropolitan areas.
The median household income in Wilmington, NC is $76,471 (ACS 2024 5-year), below the US median of $80,734.
The Census Bureau counts 13,302 employer establishments in Wilmington, NC (County Business Patterns 2023), or 29.3 businesses per 1,000 residents.
The median home value in Wilmington, NC is $362,400, and 72.1% of homes are owner-occupied (ACS 2024 5-year).
Measured against the US business mix (County Business Patterns 2023), electrical contractors, landscaping services and plumbing and HVAC contractors have more establishments per resident than the US average; general freight trucking, concrete contractors and road and paving contractors have fewer in Wilmington, NC.
A quick review of where you show up today, then a plan for where you should.
Data: US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimates and County Business Patterns 2023. Updated 2026-09-29.