State of the Mobile Web, March 2009

Dear friends,

In July 2008, we produced our first ever geographic spotlight. We covered Latin America, a region in which mobile Web penetration was quickly rising. This month, we return to see how Latin America has changed--and changed it has.

Brazil, once the country with the most Opera Mini users, has been surpassed by Chile, which jumped from number 9 to number 1 in less than one year. To some, this growth might be surprising, but Chile is one of the leading countries for mobile communication in Latin America.

In keeping with the spirit of change in our geographic spotlight, our top 10 list this month welcomes yet another first-timer. Nigeria joins the top 10 list at number 10, just edging out Germany.

However, the most enjoyable change for me is that Opera Mini continued its upward ascent after February's shortened month. In March, more than 23 million people browsed the Web with Opera Mini. If there is any debate about the need to make Web content mobile-friendly, this number should put the argument to rest: 8.6 billion. That is the number of Web pages our servers processed in March alone.

Of course, "mobile-friendly" does not equal WAP. We believe in One Web. This philosophy of offering the same content, services and applications, regardless of device, makes it much easier on both developers, who no longer need to create separate content or maintain separate infrastructure, and users, who can use the same services and applications wherever they are.

We provide many excellent resources for mobile developers at dev.opera.com. I certainly recommend it to the many of you who are helping shape the next generation of the Web.

What surprised me was that there was significant traffic 24 hours a day. I was expecting the difference between the peak and the bottom to be more than 3X. That is for me the most significant finding.

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

Part 1: Growth

Number of users

In March 2009, Opera Mini had over 23 million users, a 12.1% increase from February 2009 and more than 157% compared to March 2008.

Pages transcoded

Opera Mini users viewed over 8.6 billion pages in March 2009. Since February, page views have gone up 17.4%. Since March 2008, page views have increased 255%.

Month	Page views
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
November 2008	5,703,580,103
December 2008	6,418,665,392
January 2009	7,592,623,125
February 2009	7,347,728,912
March 2009	8,627,181,759

Data consumed

In March 2009, Opera Mini users generated more than 148 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since February, the data consumed went up by 19.3%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed up to 1.4 PB of data in March. Since March 2008, data traffic is up 319%.

Month	Data transfer (MB)
April 2007	7,800,104
May 2007	8,690,087
June 2007	8,573,444
July 2007	10,447,285
August 2007	11,145,396
September 2007	10,654,061
October 2007	13,412,789
November 2007	15,818,999
December 2007	21,613,966
January 2008	25,437,344
February 2008	28,477,270
March 2008	35,536,969
April 2008	38,264,066
May 2008	46,273,165
June 2008	50,181,823
July 2008	57,824,328
August 2008	64,853,884
September 2008	70,095,676
October 2008	79,167,872
November 2008	91,084,753
December 2008	103,144,185
January 2009	122,005,065
February 2009	124,835,298
March 2009	148,884,676

Part 2: Country snapshots for March 2009

Part 3: Spotlight on Latin America

• The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in Latin America are Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, Paraguay, Dominican Republic and Suriname.
• Some numbers regarding 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%
• Since our last spotlight on Latin America, Chile jumped from #9 to #1, and Colombia jumped from #11 to #7. Dominican Republic and Suriname are new to the spotlight.
• Google, Live and Facebook all do well in Latin America. Orkut is still strong in Brazil and Paraguay. Smaller social-networking sites, such as hi5, are also strong in several Latin American countries.
• Nokia dominates in Latin America, followed by Sony Ericsson; though, a Huawei phone is the top handset in Colombia. In Costa Rica, the entire top 10 list of handsets is populated by Sony Ericsson phones.

Top 10 countries snapshot

Part 4: Opera Mini use over the course of a day

We looked 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.

For analysis, the 24-hour day was split into six 4-hour slices (using local times).

Here is what we observed:

• 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.
• More than users from any other top 10 country, Nigerians are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 4am and 8am.
• More than users from any other top 10 country, Chinese users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 8am and noon.
• More than users from any other top 10 country, Ukrainian and Chinese users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between noon and 4pm.
• More than users from any other top 10 country, Polish users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 4pm and midnight.
• Users in all of the top 10 countries are least likely to use Opera Mini between the hours of midnight and 8am.
• In all of the top 10 countries, except Indonesia and China, usage of Opera Mini between 4pm and midnight outweighs Opera Mini usage between 8am and 4pm.
• The difference in Opera Mini usage during peak hours versus off-peak hours varies in each country. The biggest difference is noticeable in Poland (28% between 8pm and midnight versus 5% between midnight and 4am). The smallest difference is noticeable in Nigeria (20% between 8pm and midnight versus 14% between midnight and 4am).