State of the Mobile Web, January 2009

Jon S. von Tetzchner

Greetings! I have just returned from Barcelona and the yearly Mobile World Congress. What an incredible collection of industry talent! New products, new ideas and new optimism for the year ahead. We, too, had a busy and productive show - announcing Opera Turbo, our new Web-acceleration technology, and partnerships with Yahoo! and Vodafone.

Last month, I was also optimistic in predicting that usage of the mobile Web would continue to grow. Therefore, it brings me great pleasure to reveal that we witnessed one of our largest monthly increases ever in January. More than 20 million people now use Opera Mini every month, up 12% from the month before. Perhaps more significantly, page views and data transfers were both up 18%. Not only are more people using the mobile Web, but they are using the mobile Web even more.

We have a few highlights for you this month. First, we looked back on the top 35 countries for Opera Mini usage and looked at their growth rates from January 2008 to January 2009. To our surprise, Armenia, a country of three million, had the most growth - more than 2800%. To top it off, Armenians surf more with Opera Mini - 669 pages per user in January - than any other country in the top 35.

This month, we also spotlight the Middle East. Facebook is a big winner in the region, ranking highly in nine of the top 10 countries.

I hope 2009 will continue to bring surprising growth for the mobile Web. I know many of you share my hopes and optimism for the future of our industry. But, more importantly, I strongly believe in the potential to access the Web from the small screen of a mobile phone and the power that has to break the boundaries that divide us. That alone will always make me optimistic for the future.

Thank you for your continued reading.

Kind Regards,
Jon S. von Tetzchner
CEO, Opera Software

Highlights

  • 2009 started off on a very positive note for Opera Mini, with significant increases in unique users, page views and data transferred.
  • The beginning of 2009 saw Ukraine, India and South Africa go up in the global ranking of countries using Opera Mini.
  • Of the top 35 countries using Opera Mini, Armenia, Nigeria and Egypt showed the most growth (in terms of unique users) between January 2008 and January 2009.
  • In January 2009, of those top 35 countries, Armenia had the most page views per users, followed by Ukraine, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Russia.
  • The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in the Middle East are: Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon and Yemen.

Part 1: Growth

Number of users

In January 2009, Opera Mini had over 20.0 million users, a 12.1% increase from December 2008.

Pages transcoded

Opera Mini users viewed approximately 7.6 billion pages in January 2009. Since December, page views have gone up 18.3%.

MonthPage views
February 2007540,701,179
March 2007632,313,886
April 2007705,063,025
May 2007767,107,863
June 2007788,283,659
July 2007867,208,160
August 2007907,690,600
September 2007872,028,768
October 20071,192,916,658
November 20071,414,205,703
December 20071,558,566,188
January 20081,787,235,674
February 20081,883,751,325
March 20082,429,200,080
April 20082,491,451,387
May 20082,947,979,866
June 20083,224,286,622
July 20083,736,244,111
August 20084,172,941,429
September 20084,533,894,901
October 20085,088,923,679
November 20085,703,580,103
December 20086,418,665,392
January 20097,592,623,125

Data consumed

In January 2009, Opera Mini users generated more than 122 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since December, the data consumed went up by 18.0%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed 90% on average. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed more than 1.1 PB of data in January.

Note: We recently updated and improved the tracking of our data transfers. This increased our data transfers by approximately 10% each month.

MonthData transfer (MB)
February 20075,984,560
March 20077,011,251
April 20077,800,104
May 20078,690,087
June 20078,573,444
July 200710,447,285
August 200711,145,396
September 200710,654,061
October 200713,412,789
November 200715,818,999
December 200721,613,966
January 200825,437,344
February 200828,477,270
March 200835,536,969
April 200838,264,066
May 200846,273,165
June 200850,181,823
July 200857,824,328
August 200864,853,884
September 200870,095,676
October 200879,167,872
November 200891,084,753
December 2008103,144,185
January 2009122,005,065

Part 2: Country snapshots for January 2009

Snapshot: Russia

  • Yandex and mail.ru continue fighting for the number 2 position in Russia.

Top 10 sites in Russia (# of unique users)

Russia
  1. vkontakte.ru
  2. yandex.ru (up from 3)
  3. mail.ru (down from 2)
  4. odnoklassniki.ru
  5. rambler.ru
  6. google.com
  7. my.opera.com
  8. wikipedia.org
  9. wapos.ru
  10. seclub.org

Snapshot: Indonesia

  • No new sites made it onto Indonesia's top 10 list for January, but Yahoo! made a big jump from position 7 to 4.

Top 10 sites in Indonesia (# of unique users)

Indonesia
  1. friendster.com
  2. google.com
  3. facebook.com
  4. yahoo.com (up from 7)
  5. peperonity.com (up from 6)
  6. gamejump.com (down from 4)
  7. my.opera.com (up from 8)
  8. getjar.com (up from 9)
  9. gratisindo.com (back on the list)
  10. digg.com

Snapshot: Ukraine

  • Google's Ukraine-specific site debuted on the list at position 4.

Top 10 sites in Ukraine (# of unique users)

Ukraine
  1. vkontakte.ru
  2. mail.ru (up from 3)
  3. wikipedia.org (up from 7)
  4. google.com.ua (new)
  5. my.opera.com (up from 6)
  6. wapos.ru (up from 8)
  7. yandex.ru (down from 4)
  8. spaces.ru (back on the list)
  9. yahoo.com
  10. seclub.org

Snapshot: China

  • Opera China, home of Opera's Chinese community site, debuted on the list at position 9.

Top 10 sites in China (# of unique users)

China
  1. kong.net
  2. baidu.com
  3. google.cn
  4. sina.com.cn
  5. xiaonei.com (up from 7)
  6. qq.com
  7. hao123.com (down from 5)
  8. sohu.com
  9. operachina.com (new)
  10. 3g.cn (down from 9)

Snapshot: India

  • The top half of India's top 10 list showed no change in January.

Top 10 sites in India (# of unique users)

India
  1. google.com
  2. orkut.com
  3. yahoo.com
  4. gmail.com
  5. gamejump.com
  6. songs.pk (up from 7)
  7. rediff.com (down from 6)
  8. peperonity.com (up from 10)
  9. wikipedia.org (down from 8)
  10. my.opera.com (down from 9)

Snapshot: South Africa

  • Offering mobile content, zamob.com debuted on the list at position 6.
  • Local community site Gumtree is back on the list after a 4-month absence.

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

South Africa
  1. facebook.com
  2. google.com
  3. yahoo.com (up from 4)
  4. wikipedia.org (down from 3)
  5. gamejump.com
  6. zamob.com (new)
  7. waptrick.com (up from 9)
  8. my.opera.com (down from 6)
  9. live.com (up from 10)
  10. capetown.gumtree.co.za (back on the list)

Snapshot: United States

  • News and weather made a comeback in January, with The New York Times, CNN and AccuWeather.com either being back on the list or going up in the rankings.

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

United States
  1. google.com
  2. facebook.com
  3. myspace.com (up from 4)
  4. wikipedia.org (up from 5)
  5. yahoo.com (up from 7)
  6. nytimes.com (up from 10)
  7. youtube.com (up from 9)
  8. gamejump.com (down from 6)
  9. accuweather.com (back on the list)
  10. cnn.com (back on the list)

Snapshot: United Kingdom

  • Opera's community site, My Opera, debuted on the list at position 10.

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

United Kingdom
  1. google.com
  2. facebook.com
  3. yahoo.com
  4. bbc.co.uk
  5. live.com (up from 6)
  6. wikipedia.org (up from 7)
  7. bebo.com (up from 9)
  8. youtube.com
  9. gamejump.com (up from 10)
  10. my.opera.com (new)

Snapshot: Poland

  • Rail information site rozklad-pkp.pl is back on the list after a 3-month absence.

Top 10 sites in Poland (# of unique users)

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

Snapshot: Germany

  • In January, Yahoo dropped precipitously from position 2 to 8.

Top 10 sites in Germany (# of unique users)

Germany
  1. google.com
  2. wikipedia.org (up from 3)
  3. studivz.net (up from 4)
  4. web.de (up from 6)
  5. spiegel.de (up from 7)
  6. gmx.de (up from 8)
  7. youtube.com (down from 5)
  8. yahoo.com (down from 2)
  9. sport1.de (back on the list)
  10. ebay.de (down from 9)

Part 3: Top countries (January 2008 - January 2009)

  • Of the top 35 countries using Opera Mini, Armenia, Nigeria and Egypt showed the most growth (in terms of unique users) between January 2008 and January 2009.
  • In January 2009, Armenia had the most page views per users, followed by Ukraine, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Top 35 countries (unique users)

Rank Country User growth: Jan 2008-Jan 2009 Page views/user (Jan 2009)
1Russia156.9%416
2Indonesia312.1%507
3Ukraine124.2%530
4China11.2%216
5India166.7%354
6South Africa93.5%264
7United States73.0%222
8United Kingdom63.4%245
9Poland147.2%178
10Germany51.8%113
11Egypt1391.3%239
12Nigeria1854.2%229
13Czech Republic138.6%284
14Sweden43.7%207
15Belarus148.7%390
16Kenya184.3%360
17Kazakhstan419.5%482
18Malaysia351.8%236
19Vietnam394.4%150
20France232.4%165
21Bangladesh72.8%243
22Thailand85.1%276
23Spain7.2%94
24Armenia2809.0%669
25Philippines570.5%380
26Iran204.8%135
27Brazil117.6%154
28Slovakia35.6%240
29Pakistan85.4%223
30Brunei Darussalam28.2%404
31Netherlands88.1%152
32Italy77.2%308
33Lithuania450.7%241
34Israel51.8%113
35Romania129.4%388

Part 4: Spotlight on the Middle East

  • The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in the Middle East are: Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon and Yemen.
  • Nokia and Sony Ericsson are by far the most popular handset brands used by Opera Mini users in the Middle East.
  • Facebook is a major player in the Middle East, ranking highly in 9 of the top 10 countries.
  • Google is the region's dominant search engine, ahead of competitors such as Yahoo! and Live Search in each of the top 10 countries.

Top 10 countries snapshot

Snapshot: Iran

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 279.7%

Top 10 sites in Iran (# of unique users)

  1. google.com
  2. yahoo.com
  3. gamejump.com
  4. my.opera.com
  5. tagomatic.com
  6. bbc.co.uk
  7. youtube.com
  8. facebook.com
  9. wikipedia.org
  10. gmail.com

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Sony Ericsson K750i
  2. Nokia N73
  3. Sony Ericsson K800i
  4. Sony Ericsson K810i
  5. Nokia N70
  6. Sony Ericsson P990i
  7. Sony Ericsson W700
  8. Nokia 6300
  9. Nokia N95
  10. Sony Ericsson K510i

Snapshot: Israel

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 521.8%

Top 10 sites in Israel (# of unique users)

  1. facebook.com
  2. google.com
  3. ynet.co.il
  4. walla.co.il
  5. youtube.com
  6. wikipedia.org
  7. gamejump.com
  8. odnoklassniki.ru
  9. my.opera.com
  10. tapuz.co.il

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Sony Ericsson K610i
  2. Sony Ericsson K800i
  3. LG KU990
  4. Sony Ericsson W910i
  5. Nokia 6288
  6. Nokia 6120c
  7. Sony Ericsson K530i
  8. Nokia N95
  9. Nokia 6500s
  10. Nokia N73

Snapshot: Saudi Arabia

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 372.7%

Top 10 sites in Saudi Arabia (# of unique users)

  1. google.com
  2. yahoo.com
  3. friendster.com
  4. youtube.com
  5. my.opera.com
  6. wikipedia.org
  7. partypoker.com
  8. tagomatic.com
  9. live.com
  10. facebook.com

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Nokia N73
  2. Nokia N70
  3. Nokia N95
  4. Nokia 6120c
  5. Nokia 6500s
  6. Nokia 6300
  7. Nokia 5610
  8. Nokia 6630
  9. Nokia N82
  10. Nokia 5310

Snapshot: Syria

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 1,744.8%

Top 10 sites in Syria (# of unique users)

  1. google.com
  2. live.com
  3. facebook.com
  4. yahoo.com
  5. hotmail.com
  6. msn.com
  7. kooora.com
  8. syria-news.com
  9. my.opera.com
  10. youtube.com

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Nokia 6300
  2. Nokia N73
  3. Nokia N70
  4. Nokia 6500s
  5. Nokia 5610
  6. Nokia 6630
  7. Noika 5310
  8. Nokia 6120c
  9. Nokia 6233
  10. Nokia 3250

Snapshot: Jordan

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 1,634.6%

Top 10 sites in Jordan (# of unique users)

  1. google.com
  2. yahoo.com
  3. facebook.com
  4. youtube.com
  5. live.com
  6. gamejump.com
  7. 6rb.com
  8. alrai.com
  9. my.opera.com
  10. wikipedia.org

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Nokia 6300
  2. Nokia N73
  3. Nokia N70
  4. Nokia 5310
  5. Nokia 5610
  6. Nokia 6500s
  7. Nokia 6630
  8. Nokia 6120c
  9. Nokia 3250
  10. Nokia N95

Snapshot: United Arab Emirates

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 1,134.3%

Top 10 sites in United Arab Emirates (# of unique users)

  1. google.com
  2. yahoo.com
  3. facebook.com
  4. youtube.com
  5. gamejump.com
  6. orkut.com
  7. wikipedia.org
  8. live.com
  9. my.opera.com
  10. bbc.co.uk

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Nokia 6500
  2. Nokia E51
  3. Nokia 5610
  4. Nokia 5310
  5. Nokia E71
  6. Nokia 6300
  7. Nokia N82
  8. Nokia N95
  9. Nokia 3120b
  10. Nokia N73

Snapshot: Oman

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 706.6%

Top 10 sites in Oman (# of unique users)

  1. google.com
  2. youtube.com
  3. yahoo.com
  4. kooora.com
  5. live.com
  6. omania2.net
  7. gamejump.com
  8. hotmail.com
  9. facebook.com
  10. my.opera.com

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Nokia 6300
  2. Nokia N73
  3. Nokia N70
  4. Nokia 6110
  5. Nokia 6120c
  6. Nokia 5310
  7. Nokia 6500s
  8. Nokia 6630
  9. Nokia N95
  10. Sony Ericsson K800i

Snapshot: Kuwait

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 144.0%

Top 10 sites in Kuwait (# of unique users)

  1. google.com
  2. yahoo.com
  3. youtube.com
  4. facebook.com
  5. live.com
  6. wikipedia.org
  7. gamejump.com
  8. my.opera.com
  9. hotmail.com
  10. msn.com

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Nokia 6300
  2. Nokia 6500s
  3. Nokia 5310
  4. Nokia N95
  5. Nokia 5610
  6. Nokia 2680s
  7. Nokia N73
  8. Nokia 3120b
  9. Nokia 7610
  10. Nokia E71

Snapshot: Lebanon

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 37.3%

Top 10 sites in Lebanon (# of unique users)

  1. facebook.com
  2. google.com
  3. alfa.com.lb
  4. live.com
  5. hotmail.com
  6. msn.com
  7. gamejump.com
  8. ebuddy.com
  9. my.opera.com
  10. wikipedia.org

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Nokia N73
  2. Nokia N70
  3. Nokia E51
  4. Nokia 6300
  5. Nokia 6120c
  6. Nokia E71
  7. Nokia 6630
  8. Nokia N95
  9. Nokia N82
  10. Sony Ericsson K850i

Snapshot: Yemen

  • Page-view growth since January 2008: 572.6%

Top 10 sites in Yemen (# of unique users)

  1. google.com
  2. yahoo.com
  3. my.opera.com
  4. friendster.com
  5. youtube.com
  6. aljazeera.net
  7. bbc.co.uk
  8. tagomatic.com
  9. metacafe.com
  10. digg.com

Top handsets for January 2009

  1. Nokia N70
  2. Nokia N73
  3. Nokia 6630
  4. Nokia 6600
  5. Nokia 7610
  6. Nokia N95
  7. Nokia 6120c
  8. Nokia 6300
  9. Nokia 6680
  10. Nokia 3110c

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Contact

For more information about the State of the Mobile Web report, please contact Pål Unanue-Zahl palu[at]opera.com, +47 2369 2400.

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