Opera’s State of the Mobile Web examines page view statistics and top handsets throughout Europe, North America
Oslo, Norway – December 22, 2008
Fast facts
In its final State of the Mobile Web report in 2008, Opera reviews the topsites and top phones for Opera Mini in both Europe and North America.Russia and Ukraine lead Europe, followed closely by the United Kingdom.The full report is available from www.opera.com/smw/.
Released by AT&T in early November, the BlackBerry Bold made an immediateimpact and is high on the list of top handsets preferred by Opera Miniusers in the US.
Facebook and MySpace are locked in a battle for mobile social networkingsupremacy in the United States. For the first time this year, Facebook hassurpassed MySpace on the top 10 list in the U.S.
Facebook is also successful in Europe, where other social networks such asNasza Klasa in Poland and vKontakte in Russia and Ukraine, areconsistently the top sites in their respective countries.
Opera Mini users viewed more than 5.7 billion pages in November. SinceOctober, page views have gone up 12.1%. Since November 2007, this numberis up 303%.
Data transfers also increased in line with page views. In November, OperaMini users generated more than 82.9 million MB of data for operatorsworldwide. Since October, the data consumed went up by 12.5%. Data inOpera Mini is compressed 90% on average. If this data were uncompressed,Opera Mini users would have viewed over 829 million MB of data inNovember. Since November 2007, data traffic is up 463%.
Report Findings
The final State of the Mobile Web report for 2008 examines two of the mostdeveloped regions in the world: Europe and North America. For manycountries in these regions, high mobile phone penetration coexistsalongside high PC penetration and high broadband penetration. Consumershave the option of choosing either the mobile Web or the fixed Web, orboth.
Whereas our reports on Africa and Southeast Asia often showedquadruple-digit page view growth in 2008, the numbers in more developedcountries show moderate, yet still impressive gains. Page views in OperaMini grew 200% since January 2008 in the United States. In Sweden, whichenjoys some of the highest broadband penetration in the world, page viewsgrew 58% in 2008. Sweden was one of the first countries to have access toOpera Mini in 2005, yet still shows exceptional growth.
In countries where broadband is widely available and PC penetration high,there is still high demand for the mobile Web. Yet in countries withouteasy access to broadband or PCs, the mobile Web is essential and thepage-view metrics from previous State of the Mobile Web reports confirmthis trend.
Supporting quotes
“The numbers are clear: the mobile Web is growing around the world, evenin countries where broadband penetration is high. In fact, it is growingbecause consumers are used to having ubiquitous access to the Web andexpect to have it wherever they are,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera.”But the real promise of the mobile Web is in connecting those who do nothave broadband readily available. The next billion people will use the Webfirst on their mobile phones. Once that happens we will finally both unleash the vast potential and realize the greatest benefit of the mobile Web.”