State of the Mobile Web, October 2008
The mobile Web as a global phenomenon. The ubiquity of the mobile phone makes it the ideal platform for many people to access the Web. The demand is there. As we saw in our previous report on Africa, many countries experienced triple-digit or even quadruple-digit usage growth in 2008.
So we continue our mobile Web world tour this month with a focus on Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia also exhibits impressive growth figures during 2008. Indonesia has always ranked number two worldwide in our reports, but what about the other countries? Malaysia led the region in usage growth, by jumping more 460% this year to take the second spot in the region.
The mobile Web is in demand, but in some countries demand for the mobile Web exists not because it complements existing means of access, but rather because it replaces them. Page view growth and pages per user are an interesting metric to see how much people use Opera Mini to browse the Web. It is interesting to note that page views per user in Indonesia and the Philippines are significantly higher than the worldwide numbers. In fact page views grew more than 1120% in the Philippines this year.
Of course, that's just one part of the report. We give our usual updates to users, page views and data. We announced 20 million active consumer Opera Mini users (those who download Opera Mini to their phone outside of any operator deal) barely two weeks ago. We are already at 21 million and just passed 5 billion pages transcoded per month. With a new server park in the United States making Opera Mini significantly faster for almost every user, we're excited to see that number rise. Surf away, friends.
Kind Regards,
Jon S. von Tetzchner
CEO, Opera Software
Highlights
- Usage, page views and data transfers rose again this month; 21 million users viewed 5 billion pages in October 2008.
- Egypt, which debuted last month by knocking Germany off the list, continues to take the top 10 by storm, surging ahead of both the United Kingdom and Poland in terms of unique users of Opera Mini.
- This month's geographic focus is on Southeast Asia, where we see Google as the dominant player in the search engine space and Friendster as the premier social-networking site, with hi5 coming in second. Nokia is dominant in the region, with brands like Sony Ericsson and Huawei competing for a distant second place.
Part 1: Growth
Number of users
In October, Opera Mini was used by approximately 21 million users, a 10.6% month-on-month increase from September 2008 and more than 311% compared to October 2007.
Pages transcoded
Opera Mini users viewed more than 5 billion pages in October. Each person using Opera Mini viewed approximately 242 pages on average. Since September, page views have gone up 12.2%. Since October 2007, this number is up 326%.
| 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 |
| June 2008 | 3,224,286,622 |
| July 2008 | 3,736,244,111 |
| August 2008 | 4,172,941,429 |
| September 2008 | 4,533,894,901 |
| October 2008 | 5,088,923,679 |
Data consumed
In October, 21 million Opera Mini users generated more than 73.7 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since September, the data consumed went up by 12.9%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed 90% on average. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 737 million MB of data in October. Since October 2007, data traffic is up almost 490%.
| 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 |
| June 2008 | 46,735,465 |
| July 2008 | 53,853,102 |
| August 2008 | 60,399,886 |
| September 2008 | 65,281,686 |
| October 2008 | 73,730,827 |
Part 2: Country snapshots for October 2008
Snapshot: Russia
- Yandex remains the search engine of choice for Russian users of Opera Mini, but Google refuses to go away, returning to the list at number 6.
- GameJump and bash.org.ru are new to this month's top 10 list.
Top 10 sites in Russia (# of unique users)
- vkontakte.ru
- mail.ru
- yandex.ru
- odnoklassniki.ru
- rambler.ru (up from 8)
- google.com (back on the list)
- wapos.ru (down from 5)
- seclub.org (down from 6)
- gamejump.com (new)
- bash.org.ru (new)
Snapshot: Indonesia
- The top 10 list for Indonesia continues to be volatile, with several sites back on the list, and other sites moving down the list as a result.
- This month, Facebook made a big splash, debuting at number 4 on Indonesia's top 10 list. It will be interesting to see if Facebook will affect the dominance of Friendster in Indonesia.
Top 10 sites in Indonesia (# of unique users)
- friendster.com
- google.com
- gamejump.com (back on the list)
- facebook.com (new)
- yahoo.com (back on the list)
- waptrick.com (new)
- peperonity.com (down from 4)
- wikipedia.org (down from 5)
- getjar.com (back on the list)
- gratisindo.com (down from 6)
Snapshot: India
- The top 10 list in India did not exhibit a lot of change, but more and more mobile users are getting official railway information on their handsets.
- This month, Yahoo broke into the top 3, breaking up the triumvirate of Google, Orkut and Gmail.
Top 10 sites in India (# of unique users)
- google.com
- orkut.com
- yahoo.com (up from 4)
- gmail.com (down from 3)
- gamejump.com
- rediff.com
- wikipedia.org
- indianrail.gov.in (new)
- my.opera.com (down from 8)
- songs.pk
Snapshot: Ukraine
- Mobile-specific sites Spaces and PROWAP.ru debuted at positions 7 and 8, respectively, on the top 10 list.
- Once again, Yahoo has fallen off the top 10 list in Ukraine.
Top 10 sites in Ukraine (# of unique users)
- vkontakte.ru
- google.com
- mail.ru
- yandex.ru
- wapos.ru
- seclub.org (up from 8)
- spaces.ru (new)
- prowap.ru (new)
- jambo.ru (up from 10)
- football.ua (down from 9)
Snapshot: China
- There are no new sites in the top 10 list for China, but there is movement in the bottom half of that list.
- Portals continue to dominate the top half of the list.
Top 10 sites in China (# of unique users)
- kong.net
- baidu.com
- google.cn
- sina.com.cn
- qq.com (up from 6)
- hao123.com (up from 8)
- xiaonei.com (back on the list)
- paojiao.com (back on the list)
- ruanj.com (up from 10)
- 3g.cn (back on the list)
Snapshot: South Africa
- Half of South Africa's top 10 list consists of sites that were previously in the top 10, but were absent last month.
- Gmail makes its debut in South Africa at number 7, displacing webmail.co.za as the most popular Web mail service accessed by mobile users in South Africa.
Top 10 sites in South Africa (# of unique users)
- facebook.com
- google.com
- wikipedia.org (back on the list)
- gamejump.com (down from 3)
- yahoo.com (down from 4)
- my.opera.com (back on the list)
- gmail.com (new)
- youtube.com (back on the list)
- mxit.co.za (back on the list)
- webmail.co.za (back on the list)
Snapshot: United States
- The US top 10 list is very stable, with no new sites, and only 2 sites at the bottom of the list switching places.
- Showing up at number 8 last month, ESPN continues to hold its position.
Top 10 sites in the U.S. (# of unique users)
- google.com
- myspace.com
- facebook.com
- wikipedia.org
- yahoo.com
- nytimes.com
- gamejump.com
- espn.com
- youtube.com (up from 10)
- accuweather.com (down from 9)
Snapshot:Egypt
- Egyptian users are still discovering their favorite mobile Web destinations. The top 10 list for Egypt has seen many changes since last month, with a lot of sites moving up and down the rankings and two very famous sites (Wikipedia and Amazon) entering the list at positions 9 and 10, respectively.
Top 10 sites in Egypt (# of unique users)
- google.com
- facebook.com
- gamejump.com
- youtube.com (up from 5)
- my.opera.com (down from 4)
- yahoo.com (up from 8)
- bbc.co.uk (down from 6)
- friendster.com (down from 7)
- wikipedia.org (new)
- amazon.com (new)
Snapshot: United Kingdom
- Live Search and Bebo have switched places yet again.
- This month, MSN was knocked off the list by GameJump.
Top 10 sites in the U.K. (# of unique users)
- google.com
- yahoo.com
- facebook.com
- bbc.co.uk
- bebo.com (up from 6)
- live.com (down from 5)
- wikipedia.org
- youtube.com
- myspace.com
- gamejump.com (new)
Snapshot: Poland
- The top 10 list in Poland displayed little change this month. Gadu-Gadu is back on the list after a two month absence, displacing Rozklad Jazdy PKP.
Top 10 sites in Poland (# of unique users)
- nasza-klasa.pl
- google.com
- lajt.onet.pl
- allegro.pl
- wikipedia.org
- wp.pl
- fotka.pl
- youtube.com
- gamejump.com
- gadu-gadu.pl (back on the list)
Part 3: Spotlight on Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia is a "rojak" (Malay for mixture) with different levels of Internet development. Singapore has one of the world's highest broadband-penetration rates while countries like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar lag behind.
With more than 500 million people, Southeast Asia presents an exciting opportunity for mobile developers and operators. Countries in the region have grown their mobile Web uptake significantly. The lack of broadband Internet infrastructure in some countries has contributed to the burst of mobile browsing. Heavy users often opt for the latest phone model that comes with 3G and it has become increasing popular for mobile operators to offer fixed-rate 3G packages, which consumers use to replace their broadband access.
Popular sites in Southeast Asia are a mix of international sites and local ones. Singapore has mostly international sites, while Vietnam has mostly Vietnamese in the Top 10. We also see a huge social network following in the region. Friendster, Hi5 and Facebook all ranked strongly. In our August report on the Long Tail, we showed that Friendster alone contributed to more than 50% of the monthly data usage in Indonesia.
Highlights
- Indonesia and Malaysia lead the way for mobile Web adoption, followed by Thailand and Brunei.
- Indonesia leads the top 9 countries in page views, with each user browsing 358 pages on average in October 2008, well above the global average.
- Growth rates are soaring: Malaysia leads the top 9 with 462.6% growth in users this year, followed by the Philippines (396.4% growth) and Indonesia (329.5% growth).
- In Southeast Asia, among mobile Web users, Google is the dominant player in the search engine space, with Yahoo and Live Search vying for second place.
- Friendster is the premier social-networking site in the region, with hi5 coming in second.
- Nokia is dominant in the region, with brands like Sony Ericsson and Huawei competing for a distant second place.
Top 9 countries snapshot
Other formats
- Printable version (PDF)
- Opera Mini data sheet (Excel)
Related resources
Contact
For more information about the State of the Mobile Web report, please contact Pål Unanue-Zahl palu[at]opera.com, +47 2369 2400.
Subscribe to the report
Get updated each time we release a report.