Explosive growth for Opera Mini – usage up 157% year-over-year

New State of the Mobile Web highlights Latin America

Oslo, Norway – April 27, 2009

Fast facts

There has been a major jump in usage, page views and data transfers for Opera Mini this month. In March 2009, more than 23 million people used Opera Mini, a 12.1% increase from February 2009 and more than 157% increase from March 2008. Those users viewed more than 8.6 billion pages in March 2009. Since February, page views have gone up 17.4%. Year over year (YoY), page views have increased 255%. The full State of the Mobile Web report is available from http://www.opera.com/smw/.

The growth in data transfers also highlights the value Opera Mini offers global operators. In March 2009, Opera Mini served 148 million MB of data to handsets worldwide. Since February, the data consumed went up by 19.3%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed 90% on average. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed nearly 1.4 PB of data in March. Since March 2008, data traffic is up 319%.

A surge of Opera Mini usage in Nigeria pushed that country into the top 10, displacing Germany.

This month's report focuses on Latin America. In the region, Chile surged from ninth to first overall as unique users of Opera Mini in Chile jumped more than 3,200 percent YoY. In the same time frame, page views grew almost 26,000 percent. Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela followed. The original report on Latin America, from July 2008, is available from http://www.opera.com/smw/2008/07/.

This month's report also looks at one 24-hour period (Tuesday, March 17th) to see how Opera Mini is used throughout the day in the top 10 countries. In this case, we measured usage according to data transferred. In all but two of the top 10 countries, the highest level of Opera Mini use is at the tail end of the day – from 8pm to midnight. In Indonesia, Opera Mini is used most between noon and 4pm. In China, Opera Mini is used most between 8am and noon.

Report findings

The mobile Web is booming in Latin America. From March 2008 to March 2009, overall page views in the top 10 countries listed increased 673%. From March 2008 to March 2009, overall unique users in the top 10 countries listed increased 164%. From March 2008 to March 2009, overall data transferred in the top 10 countries listed increased 510%.

Examining the top sites, Google, Live and Facebook all do well in Latin America. Orkut remains the dominant social network in Brazil and Paraguay. Smaller social-networking sites, such as hi5, are also strong in several Latin American countries.

The mobile Web continues its rapid growth worldwide. For the first time, Opera's State of the Mobile Web profiles page-view and user growth in the top 10 countries. We find triple-digit page-view growth in most countries, with double-digit user increases in all countries. Nigeria is the exception to both as it experienced more than 4,000 percent page-view growth and almost 1,500 percent user growth since March 2008.

Supporting quote

"A mobile phone will be the device most people use to access the Web," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "As millions of people each month discover the Web through Opera Mini, content providers have an incredible opportunity to seize competitive advantage in this new medium. By simply ensuring their content works on any device, they will open themselves to the next generation of Web users."

About Opera Software ASA

Opera Software ASA has redefined Web browsing for PCs, mobile phones and other networked devices. Opera's cross-platform Web browser technology is renowned for its performance, standards compliance and small size, while giving users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience. Opera Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices around the world. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA. Learn more about Opera at http://www.opera.com/.

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