Google search reclaims mobile web throne

Oslo, Norway – December 21, 2010

The image is free to download and distribute for editorial use.

The year-end review of the most popular websites on mobile phones shows that Google once again rests at the top of the State of the Mobile Web top 30 list. In 2009, Facebook was king of the mobile Web. In 2010, Google returned to claim the top spot among more than 80 million Opera Mini users worldwide, knocking Facebook to the second spot.

Another rising star on the mobile web is the microblogging service Twitter, while the older social network Friendster is decreasing in popularity on a global basis. The rapid growth of Twitter, rising eight places to #13 in the ranking, is mirrored by the rise of the social website Orkut as Brazilian web users take Opera Mini to their hearts.

What we say

“We believe people with access to information lead more social, more informed and more empowered lives,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software. “Growth in mobile browsing means the Web is pushing beyond its traditional borders. If the first era of the Web was about expanding the capability and content of the Web, the second age is clearly about access. In Opera we believe that access to the Web is a universal right.”

Top 10 global mobile websites for November 2010

Google.com (up 1)
Facebook.com (down 1)
Vkontakte.ru
Youtube.com (up 4)
Odnoklassniki.ru (down 1)
Yandex.ru (up 1)
Yahoo.com (up 2)
My.opera.com (down 2)
Mail.ru (down 4)
Getjar.com (up 3)

For a complete top 30 list, visit the State of the Mobile Web site: www.opera.com/smw/2010/11/

Top 10 global mobile handsets for November 2010

As the mobile technology progresses, users constantly change their hardware to keep up. During 2010, the top list of mobile phones used to access the Web via Opera Mini changed significantly. Close to half of the top 30 list in 2010 are handsets not present in the top 30 list for 2009. With one exception, the Nokia feature phones rule the top 10 list of the Opera Mini users” phones.

Nokia 5130 XpressMusic (up 1)
Nokia 2700c (up 5)
Nokia 6300 (down 2)
Nokia 2690 (new)
Apple iPhone (new)
Nokia 2330c (up 13)
Nokia 2730c (new)
Nokia N70 (down 4)
Nokia C3 (new)
Nokia 5310 XpressMusic (down 5)

For a complete top 30 list, visit the State of the Mobile Web site: www.opera.com/smw/2010/11/

Global trends

Opera Mini saw significant increases in all three categories of growth in November 2010: unique users, pages viewed and data consumed. In all, 80.0 million people used Opera Mini in November, 44.6 billion pages were served, and 6.3 petabytes of operator data were compressed for Opera Mini users.
Nigeria passed the United States in terms of total Opera Mini users in the month of November.
The United Kingdom, Belarus, Philippines, Poland, Bangladesh and Germany all went up in the ranking of top 20 countries. Turkey was a new addition in November, as Malaysia fell off the list.

More results can be obtained in the report: www.opera.com/smw/2010/11/

Latin America trends

The top 11 countries using Opera Mini in the region are Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Honduras.
Some numbers: From November 2009 to November 2010, page views in the top 11 countries of Latin America increased by 543%, unique users increased by 298% and data transferred increased by 447%.
Growth rates in Latin America: Brazil and Ecuador lead the top 11 countries of the region in terms of page-view growth. Brazil and Colombia lead the top 11 countries of the region in growth of unique users (575.6 % and 333.7 %, respectively). Brazil and Dominican Republic lead the top 11 countries of the region in growth of data transferred (1181.5 % and 599.7 %, respectively). Costa Rica leads the top 11 countries of the region in page views per user, with each user browsing 694 pages on average each month.

With more than 80 million monthly users, Opera Mini is the most popular browser on mobile devices. In November alone, users viewed more than 44 billion webpages and saved money, while the Opera servers compressed more than 6 petabytes of data.