Operators slug it out for mobile data supremacy

Newest State of the Mobile Web report profiles aggregate operator datain top 10 countries

Oslo, Norway – May 27, 2009

Opera today released its newest State of the Mobile Web report. Thereport provides information on the top global trends affecting themobile Web. The full report is available from http://www.opera.com/smw/(English only). In addition to the top global trends and countrysnapshots, the report highlights trends in Africa and aggregate operatordata for the top 10 countries.

Global trends

  • In April 2009, Opera Mini had over 23.4 million users, up more than 140%compared to April 2008.
  • Opera Mini users viewed nearly 8.7 billion pages in April 2009. SinceApril 2008, page views have increased 249%.
  • Last month, Opera Mini users generated more than 151 million MB of datafor operators worldwide. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%. Ifthis data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed up to 1.4PB of data in April. Over the previous year, data traffic is up 295%.
  • Opera Mini usage in Nigeria continues to surge, pushing past Poland andtaking the #9 spot.

Africa trends

The top 12 countries using Opera Mini in Africa are South Africa, Nigeria,Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Zambia, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Namibia,Ghana and Gabon.

  • From April 2008 to April 2009:
    • Overall page-views in the top 12 countries listed increased 422%.
    • Overall unique users in the top 12 countries listed increased 169%.
    • Overall data transferred in the top 12 countries listed increased 348%.
  • Since our last spotlight on Africa, Nigeria jumped from #4 to #2 andZambia jumped from #9 to #6. Mozambique, Namibia, Ghana and Gabon are newto the spotlight.
  • Growth rates continue to soar in Africa–especially in Libya, with4,155% user growth since April 2008, and in Nigeria, with 2,353% usergrowth since April 2008.
  • Kenya leads the top 12 countries in page views, with each user browsing372 pages on average each month.

Operator data trends

  • Customers of U.S. operators view more data-intensive pages thansubscribers in any other country. The average page viewed over U.S.operator networks is approximately 32 KB compressed or almost 320 KBuncompressed.
  • Operators in the Ukraine were the big winners. Their customers view582 pages per month, on average. Ukraine operators also sport thehighest data transfer per user at more than 10 MB per month compressed.This is as much as 100 MB of mobile data per user uncompressed.

Supporting quote

“Opera Mini has helped create and define the mobile Web experience forconsumers around the world,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. “Ourrelentless focus on delivering the best possible mobile Web experiencehelps drive adoption of mobile data plans. We believe that Opera Mini isthe perfect win-win solution for both operators and consumers alike.”