Web usage on mobile phones shows stunning month-on-month gains according to new State of the Mobile Web Report
Oslo, Norway – September 30, 2010
The mobile Web gained increasing momentum in August, with page views increasing by more than 14 percent and data transfers increasing by almost 10 percent from July. More than four million new Opera Mini users contributed to the jump, which is the largest gain in six months.
Opera’s State of the Mobile Web Report, published monthly, provides information on the top global trends affecting the mobile Web. The full report is available from http://www.opera.com/smw/ (English only). This month’s report includes in-depth reports on the top 20 countries for Opera Mini usage, and profiles usage of the mobile Web in the Middle East.
Global trends
- In August 2010, Opera Mini had more than 66.5 million users, a 6.8 percent (%) increase from July 2010. Since August 2009, the number of unique users has increased 108.3%.
- Opera Mini users viewed more than 33.9 billion pages in August 2010. Since July, page views have gone up 14.3%. Since August 2009, page views have increased 143.2%.
- In August 2010, Opera Mini users generated more than 489.4 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since July, the data consumed went up by 9.9%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed by up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed more than 4.5 petabytes of data in August. Since August 2009, data traffic is up 134.4%.
- Instead of the usual top 10, this month Opera begins in-depth profiling of the top 20 countries for Opera Mini usage. The top 20 are, in order: Indonesia, Russia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, Vietnam, United Kingdom, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Poland, Nigeria, Malaysia, Belarus, Philippines, Egypt, Germany, Brazil and Bangladesh.
Middle East trends
- The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in the Middle East are Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Qatar, Oman, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
- Some numbers: From August 2009 to August 2010, page views in the top 10 countries of the Middle East increased by 179%, unique users increased by 149% and data transferred increased by 196%.
- Growth rates in the Middle East: Iraq and Qatar lead the top 10 countries of the region in terms of page-view growth (1,931.8 % and 1735.4 %, respectively). Iraq and Qatar also lead the top 10 countries of the region in growth of unique users (1,031.9 % and 1,003.0 %, respectively). Jordan leads the top 10 countries of the region in page views per user, with each user browsing 422 pages on average each month.
- In the Middle East, among mobile Web users, Google is at the very top of the rankings in all 10 of the top 10 countries.
- In the Middle East, Facebook is also very popular, taking the #2 spot in six of the top 10 countries. In the remaining four countries, YouTube holds the #2 spot.
- Opera Mini users in the Middle East strongly prefer Nokia handsets. Out of the 100 handsets listed in the top 10 lists of 10 countries, 91 handsets were Nokia phones, 5 handsets were Apple iPhones, 3 handsets were Sony Ericsson phones and 1 handset was an LG phone. In August, the Apple iPhone was the #1 preferred handset of Opera Mini users in Israel.
What we say
“Growth of the mobile Web worldwide accelerated dramatically in August,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software. “These numbers are not limited to smartphones alone. The mobile Web was, and remains, a global phenomenon for people all over the world, on a variety of devices and screen sizes. It is this unparalleled reach of the mobile Web that will bring tremendous social and economic change to people in many countries.”
State of the Mobile Web Report archive: http://www.opera.com/smw/archive/