Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela tops in Latin America for mobile Web usage

Google ranks as most-visited site, followed by range of popular social networks

Oslo, Norway — August 20, 2008

Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela lead Latin America in adoption of the mobile Web according to the newest "State of the Mobile Web" report issued by Opera Software today. The report also specifies the Top 10 most popular sites ranked according to unique visitors in each of the top countries for mobile Web usage in Latin America. Google leads the way in most countries, followed by some of the most popular social-networking sites. Opera's "State of the Mobile Web" report, published each month, is available to the public at http://www.opera.com/mobile_report/ in both HTML and PDF formats.

Additionally, statistics from July reveal that the mobile Web continues to expand worldwide. The number of people using Opera Mini, the world's most popular mobile Web browser with 15.8 million unique monthly users, grew 9.4% month over month, while page views grew almost 16% in the same period.

"We're pleased to see such considerable growth and interest in accessing the Web from mobile phones globally," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "But the pace of adoption in Latin America is increasing rapidly. The reasons behind this growth are two-fold. First, consumers are willing to purchase data plans because of the cost savings associated with Opera Mini's data compression. They are able to surf more. Second, 80% of phones in Latin America can support a lightweight Web browser. Giving those consumers a better Web experience helps drive both interest in and adoption of the mobile Web. Operators in Latin America are now embarking on ambitious mobile Web strategies as they realize the business benefit and increased revenue of offering full Web browsing to their customers."

Select highlights for Latin America:

Brazil leads the way in mobile Web usage in Latin America, followed closely by Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina.
Orkut, metroFLOG and hi5 are the most prevalent social-networking sites in Latin America, although Facebook is the fourth-most-popular site in Venezuela.
Local domains are few and far between in the top 10. Brazil leads all Latin American countries with two, while most have one or no local domains in the top 10.

Select global highlights from the July report:

Mobile Web usage continues to grow in significant categories: unique users, pages viewed and data traffic.
More than 15.8 million people used Opera Mini in July, a 9.4% increase from June.
Those 15.8 million people viewed 3.7 billion pages in July, averaging 236 pages each. Since June, page views have gone up 15.9%.
Data traffic grew in line with the page-view increase. Opera Mini users generated 53.8 million MB of data for operators worldwide, a 15.2% increase over last month. Because this data is compressed an average of 90%, Opera Mini users would have viewed more 538 million MB of data in the month of July.

As the world's most popular Web browser for mobile phones, Opera Mini provides an elegant, fast and rich Web experience. While some Web browsers work on only 20 to 30 phone models, Opera Mini runs on more than 800 different handsets, making it the available to the widest range of consumers worldwide. Almost every phone with Java can run Opera Mini. Completely free for anyone to download and use, Opera Mini is available from http://www.operamini.com/.

Data in the report is based on aggregate and anonymous statistics from Opera Mini servers. All percentages are based on a snapshot of the Top 100 sites for each region. Beyond providing a snapshot of worldwide browsing trends, Opera's "State of the Mobile Web" highlights the browsing trends in the ten countries where Opera Mini is most popular: the United States, Russia, China, Indonesia, India, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, South Africa and Ukraine.

About Opera Software ASA

The worldwide World Wide Web — any device, any platform, any bandwidth, absolutely anywhere in the world. Opera Software was founded in 1994, based on the idea that access to the web should be a universal right. 250 million people (and counting) use the Opera web browsers for computers, mobile phones, TVs and other connected devices. Opera also delivers tools, distribution, engagement, monetization and market insights to developers, publishers and brands around the world. We are passionate about breaking down barriers, so everyone can share in the power of the internet. Our vision of one web for all remains at the heart of what we do, because we believe that participation changes everything. Opera Software ASA is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA. ‘Opera’, ‘Opera Software’, ‘Opera Mini’ and the ‘O’ logo are trademarks of Opera Software ASA. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Learn more about Opera at www.opera.com.