Bangladeshis save BDT 3.3B in data costs with Opera Mini

Opera Mini saved 10,829TB of data for mobile users in Bangladesh in 2015 thanks to the browser’s unique compression technology, according to findings from Opera’s “State of the Mobile Web” report. That amount of data is worth৳3.3 billion BDT (1GB costs৳300 BDT, on average), equivalent to 42 million USD.

Opera Mini shrinks data to as little as 10% of its original size and is the most popular web browser for Bangladeshis to access the internet from mobile devices. The app is available with a Bengali user interface and also renders websites with Bengali content, a very useful feature for users who are more comfortable browsing in their native language. The report gives insights into the surfing habits of mobile web users in Bangladesh.

Findings from Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report:

Facebook leads mobile-web usage

Eight out of every ten webpages viewed by Opera Mini users from their mobile phones are from Facebook. The site also contributes to 65% of all data that is used by Opera Mini users in Bangladesh. Social networking’s popularity is followed by searching with Google and checking out cricket updates from Cricbuzz.

Smartphone users exceed basic phone users

More than half of Opera Mini users in Bangladesh use smartphones. The breakup of mobile OS’s is as follows: 53% Android, 45% Java and MRE, 2% iOS and Windows Phone. Samsung and Symphony are the most popular brands of Android smartphones that are used. Nokia is popular among basic Java phone users.

Bangladeshis have a ferocious appetite for local news

An analysis of the top 50 most-visited sites in Opera Mini in Bangladesh shows that a whopping 42% of them are news sites. This high interest in reading local news content is a unique characteristic of Bangladeshi users as compared to mobile users in other Opera Mini markets. Download portals make up 21% of the 50 most-visited sites, and social networking sites 14%.

“Bangladesh is now among our top-five largest markets of Opera Mini users globally. Over the last few years, we have seen fast growth in the number of mobile internet users. Social networking is one of the major reasons that drives usage, but the availability of affordable Android handsets and efforts taken by local mobile operators has also contributed significantly to this growth,” says Sunil Kamath, Vice President for South Asia & Southeast Asia at Opera.

“Our goal at Opera has always been to make the internet accessible to more people in more places, across devices and mobile network conditions,” Kamath says. “We are happy to enable faster browsing for users in a cost-efficient way.”

Opera Mini is free app. It is available for download on Google Play, the App Store, Windows Store and m.opera.com.