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Jon S. von Tetzchner

We were pleased by the response to last month’s State of the Mobile Web report. Due to the strong interest, we have decided to release further iterations of this report on a monthly basis.

During the past four months, we have surveyed the people who use Opera Mini in order to tailor our products better. The results of those surveys paint an interesting demographic picture of who uses the Web on a mobile phone. We hope you also might learn from these numbers to understand how we can work together to shape the future of this industry.

We have also maintained our ranking of the top sites in each of the top countries for Opera Mini usage. We have, however, switched from tracking page views to looking at aggregate numbers of unique users to provide a clearer picture of where traffic is headed.

Lastly, we have decided to include a fun snapshot each month of top sites in a specific category. With the Euro 2008 football tournament in progress and the 2008 Summer Olympics coming up in August, we have decided to examine the top sports sites accessed by Opera Mini users worldwide.

Thanks again and keep the feedback coming. We will continually refine this report to meet the evolving needs of our industry.

Regards/Vennlig hilsen/Kær kvedja...
Jon S. von Tetzchner
CEO, Opera Software

Highlights

  • In the ten countries examined, male users of Opera Mini greatly outnumber female users. The biggest difference in usage between males and females is in India, where 97.2% of people using Opera Mini to browse the Web are males. The smallest difference is in South Africa, where 1 out of 4 people using Opera Mini are females.
  • Browsing the Web on handsets using Opera Mini is most popular amongst the 18-27 year old demographic, but there is some interesting variation between countries. For example, 3 out of 10 Opera Mini users in the Ukraine are under 18 years old. Globally, 13.4% of Opera Mini users are under 18 years of age, 64.5% are 18-27 years of age, 16.7% are 28-37 years of age, 4.4% are 38-47 years of age, and 1% is more than 48 years of age.
  • The top 10 sites in each country ranked according to number of users are somewhat different from the top 10 sites in those same countries ranked according to page views. Sites with fewer users but more page views are less common on this report's top 10 lists (compared to the previous report).

Part 1: Growth

Number of Users

Usage of Opera Mini, the world's most popular mobile browser, continues to grow. Every month since its launch in 2006, Opera Mini has seen an increase in users. More than 13 million people used Opera Mini in the month of April, and more than 14.7 million people used Opera Mini in the month of May, which represents a 24.6% increase since March 2008.

Pages Transcoded

Opera Mini users viewed nearly 2.5 billion pages in April and more than 2.9 billion pages in May. In April, each person using Opera Mini viewed 191 pages on average. In May, each person using Opera Mini viewed 200 pages on average. Since March, page views have gone up 21.4%.

Month Page views
January 2006 39,969,125
February 2006 70,119,707
March 2006 102,386,928
April 2006 123,915,618
May 2006 155,660,949
June 2006 183,518,205
July 2006 231,325,050
August 2006 268,738,912
September 2006 274,840,901
October 2006 336,044,711
November 2006 378,938,100
December 2006 423,503,600
January 2007 507,622,606
February 2007 540,701,179
March 2007 632,313,886
April 2007 705,063,025
May 2007 767,107,863
June 2007 788,283,659
July 2007 867,208,160
August 2007 907,690,600
September 2007 872,028,768
October 2007 1,192,916,658
November 2007 1,414,205,703
December 2007 1,558,566,188
January 2008 1,787,235,674
February 2008 1,883,751,325
March 2008 2,429,200,080
April 2008 2,491,451,387
May 2008 2,947,979,866
Pages transcoded by Opera Mini per month

Data Consumed

In April, 13 million Opera Mini users generated more than 35.7 million MB of data for operators worldwide. In May, 14.7 million Opera Mini users generated more than 43.2 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since March, the data consumed went up by 30.4%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed 85% on average. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed nearly 288 million MB of data in the month of May.

Month Data transfer (MB)
January 2006 587,826
February 2006 759,338
March 2006 1,072,662
April 2006 1,334,715
May 2006 1,831,441
June 2006 2,127,142
July 2006 2,614,633
August 2006 2,979,209
September 2006 2,976,858
October 2006 3,692,282
November 2006 4,124,607
December 2006 4,652,547
January 2007 5,322,457
February 2007 5,573,556
March 2007 6,529,736
April 2007 7,264,413
May 2007 8,093,274
June 2007 7,984,642
July 2007 9,729,792
August 2007 10,379,959
September 2007 9,922,367
October 2007 12,491,633
November 2007 14,732,591
December 2007 20,129,575
January 2008 23,690,372
February 2008 26,521,524
March 2008 33,096,381
April 2008 35,636,188
May 2008 43,095,243
Total data consumed per month (in MB)

Part 2: Country snapshots for May 2008

Snapshot: Russia

  • Mobile browsing is popular among the 18-27 year old demographic, but more than 1 in 5 Opera Mini users in Russia are under 18 years old.

Top 10 sites in Russia (# of unique users)

Russia
  1. vkontakte.ru
  2. mail.ru
  3. yandex.ru
  4. google.com
  5. odnoklassniki.ru
  6. tegos.ru
  7. sasisa.ru
  8. wapos.ru
  9. yahoo.com
  10. rambler.ru

User demographics

Male87.5%
Female12.5%
Under 1821.9%
18-2761.3%
28-3713.2%
38-473.1%
Over 480.5%

Snapshot: Indonesia

  • In Indonesia, 18-27 year old men are the most likely to browse the Web on their mobile phones.

Top 10 sites in Indonesia (# of unique users)

Indonesia
  1. friendster.com
  2. google.com
  3. yahoo.com
  4. my.opera.com
  5. gamejump.com
  6. youtube.com
  7. getjar.com
  8. wikipedia.org
  9. information.com
  10. peperonity.com

User demographics

Male82.0%
Female18.0%
Under 1819.3%
18-2752.9%
28-3720.3%
38-475.9%
Over 481.6%

Snapshot: India

  • As in China, the vast majority of Opera Mini users in India are male (~97%) and between 18 and 27 years old (~76%). India also has the lowest percentage (5.6%) of Opera Mini users who are under 18 years old.

Top 10 sites in India (# of unique users)

India
  1. google.com
  2. orkut.com
  3. yahoo.com
  4. gmail.com
  5. rediff.com
  6. youtube.com
  7. gamejump.com
  8. wikipedia.org
  9. information.com
  10. my.opera.com

User demographics

Male97.2%
Female2.8%
Under 185.6%
18-2775.7%
28-3713.8%
38-473.8%
Over 481.0%

Snapshot: China

  • As in India, a vast majority of Opera Mini users in China are male (~95%) and between 18 and 27 years old (70%).

Top 10 sites in China (# of unique users)

China
  1. kong.net
  2. baidu.com
  3. google.cn
  4. sina.com.cn
  5. qq.com
  6. xiaonei.com
  7. hao123.com
  8. sohu.com
  9. 3g.cn
  10. taobao.com

User demographics

Male94.5%
Female5.5%
Under 188.5%
18-2770.0%
28-3716.9%
38-473.8%
Over 480.7%

Snapshot: United States

  • Of the top 10 countries, the United States has the highest number (proportionally) of Opera Mini users who are over 48 years old.

Top 10 sites in the U.S. (# of unique users)

United States
  1. google.com
  2. myspace.com
  3. yahoo.com
  4. wikipedia.org
  5. facebook.com
  6. nytimes.com
  7. youtube.com
  8. espn.com
  9. cnn.com
  10. accuweather.com

User demographics

Male80.6%
Female19.4%
Under 188.3%
18-2743.7%
28-3729.6%
38-4711.4%
Over 487.0%

Snapshot: South Africa

  • 1 in 4 Opera Mini users in South Africa is female. Proportionally, more women use Opera Mini in South Africa than in any other country.

Top 10 sites in South Africa (# of unique users)

South Africa
  1. facebook.com
  2. google.com
  3. yahoo.com
  4. wikipedia.org
  5. gamejump.com
  6. greystripe.com
  7. youtube.com
  8. my.opera.com
  9. live.com
  10. peperonity.com

User demographics

Male75.3%
Female24.7%
Under 1812.5%
18-2762.8%
28-3717.3%
38-476.3%
Over 481.1%

Snapshot: Ukraine

  • A higher percentage (~30%) of young people in Ukraine browse the Web on mobile than in any other country listed.

Top 10 sites in Ukraine (# of unique users)

Ukraine
  1. google.com
  2. vkontakte.ru
  3. mail.ru
  4. sasisa.ru
  5. yahoo.com
  6. wapos.ru
  7. 1124.ru
  8. seclub.org
  9. tegos.ru
  10. yandex.ru

User demographics

Male91.5%
Female8.5%
Under 1829.8%
18-2749.6%
28-3715.0%
38-474.8%
Over 480.8%

Snapshot: United Kingdom

  • Of the top 10 countries, the United Kingdom has the highest percentage (~34%) of users in the 28-37 age group.

Top 10 sites in the U.K. (# of unique users)

United Kingdom
  1. yahoo.com
  2. google.com
  3. news.bbc.co.uk
  4. facebook.com
  5. live.com
  6. youtube.com
  7. wikipedia.org
  8. bebo.com
  9. myspace.com
  10. ebay.co.uk

User demographics

Male83.4%
Female16.6%
Under 1810.8%
18-2738.9%
28-3733.7%
38-4713.5%
Over 483.1%

Snapshot: Germany

  • Of the top 10 countries, Germany has the highest percentage (24.5%) of users in the 38-47 age group. Over 30% of German Opera Mini users are over 38 years old.

Top 10 sites in Germany (# of unique users)

Germany
  1. google.com
  2. yahoo.com
  3. wikipedia.org
  4. sport1.de
  5. ebay.de
  6. studivz.net
  7. spiegel.de
  8. my.opera.com
  9. web.de
  10. heise.de

User demographics

Male94.3%
Female5.7%
Under 188.2%
18-2737.7%
28-3723.9%
38-4724.5%
Over 485.7%

Snapshot: Poland

  • Outside of Ukraine, Poland has the highest percentage (~24%) of young people browsing the Web on mobile phones, and the fewest female users (proportionally) outside of India.

Top 10 sites in Poland (# of unique users)

Poland
  1. google.pl
  2. lajt.onet.pl
  3. allegro.pl
  4. nasza-klasa.pl
  5. wikipedia.org
  6. wp.pl
  7. fotka.pl
  8. onet.pl
  9. youtube.com
  10. rozklad-pkp.pl

User demographics

Male95.0%
Female5.0%
Under 1823.9%
18-2752.2%
28-3719.4%
38-472.2%
Over 482.2%

Part 3: Sports sites

Here are the Top 10 sports sites around the world that are accessed on mobile phones using Opera Mini:

Soccer ball
  1. livescore.com
  2. championat.ru
  3. sport-express.ru
  4. iplt20.com
  5. espn.go.com
  6. sportbox.ru
  7. skysports.com
  8. cricinfo.com
  9. sports.3g.cn
  10. wwe.com

Other formats

Related resources

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  • November 24, 2009

Contact

For more information about the State of the Mobile Web report, please contact toro[at]opera.com, +47 24164242.

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