New State of the Mobile Web Report showcases cost savings
Oslo, Norway – October 27, 2010
Opera Mini saves consumers worldwide more than 2.2 billion USD each month on their mobile data bills, according to Opera’s newest State of the Mobile Web Report. Consumers in the United States and Nigeria benefit the most from Opera Mini’s unique compression technology, which reduces the size of web pages up to 90 percent (%). Using prevailing metered rates, United States consumers could save 141 USD on average each month, while Opera Mini users in Nigeria save 44 USD each month.
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 profiles on the top 20 countries for Opera Mini usage, a spotlight on mobile browsing trends in the European Union and a look at how much money consumers can save using Opera Mini.
Global trends
- In September 2010, Opera Mini had over 71.2 million users, a 7.1% increase from August 2010. Since September 2009, the number of unique users has increased 100.1%
- Opera Mini users viewed over 36.9 billion pages in September 2010. Since August, page views have gone up 9.0%. Since September 2009, page views have increased 147.2%.
- Opera Mini users generated over 535.3 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since August, the data consumed went up by 9.4%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed by up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 4.9 petabytes of data in September. Since September 2009, data traffic is up 135.8%.
Saving money with Opera Mini
Since mobile data is compressed by up to 90%, Opera Mini users potentially save a lot of money on pay-as-you-go plans. Based on the average cost of browsing the Web on a mobile phone (on a per-MB basis), users in the top 10 countries save over 802 million USD per month, or over 9.6 billion USD per year. Users worldwide save more than 2.2 billion USD per month, or over 27.4 billion USD per year.
On a monthly basis, individual users in the United States and Nigeria save the most money using Opera Mini, based on their usage and the average cost of browsing (per MB).
A cost savings calculator is included in the report, so visitors can see how much Opera Mini could save them.
European Union trends
- The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in the European Union (EU) are the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Italy, France, Czech Republic, Spain, Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia.
- Some numbers: From September 2009 to September 2010, page views in the top 10 countries of the EU increased by 58.4%, unique users increased by 10.3% and the amount of data transferred increased by 61.0%
- Growth rates in the EU: Spain and Germany lead the top 10 countries of the region in terms of page-view growth (205.2% and 120.8%, respectively). Spain and Germany also lead the top 10 countries of the region in growth of unique users (58.8% and 47.5%, respectively). Likewise, Spain and Germany lead the top 10 countries of the region in growth of data transferred (208.1% and 133.0%, respectively). Slovakia leads the top 10 countries of the region in page views per user, with each user browsing 402 pages on average each month.
- In the EU, among mobile web users, Google is at the top of the rankings in all 10 of the top 10 countries. In five out of the 10 countries, Facebook occupies the number two spot.
- Opera Mini users in the EU generally prefer Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets, with a couple of LG and Samsung phones occasionally showing up in the handset rankings.
- We looked at the top 10 handsets used in each of the top 10 EU countries. Out of the 100 total handsets listed, 67 of them were Nokia, 14 of them were Sony Ericsson, 10 of them were Apple, five of them were BlackBerry, three of them were LG and one was Samsung. The Apple iPhone was listed in all 10 of the top 10 EU countries, and was the number one handset in seven of those countries.
What we say
“Keeping costs low is about more than just saving money; it is about making the Web more accessible to a wider range of people,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera. “That is why we focus so heavily on making Opera Mini work on all phones, and, in fact, why we originally founded Opera. We believe access to the Web is a universal right, and we hope that by keeping costs low, we play a part in helping people connect, on any device, wherever they are.”
State of the Mobile Web Report archive: http://www.opera.com/smw/archive/