State of the Mobile Web, September 2009

Welcome to another edition of our State of the Mobile Web report. I think this might be our most fascinating report yet.

This past month we introduced the first beta of Opera Mini 5, a browser that we are very proud to share with you. One aspect of Opera Mini we often publicize is the compression technology, because it gives both speed and cost savings. This month we actually quantify how much we save consumers: up to 8.1 billion dollars per year off their mobile-phone bills. And that is just within the top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage.

Eight billion dollars also underscores just how much people actually browse from their phone. This month, we passed two major milestones: more than 500 million page-views per day, on average, and more than 2 petabytes of data processed by our servers every month.

We are on a mission to bring the Web to everyone, on their terms. By making the mobile Web more affordable, we help democratize it. More people can use more of the Web. And, with more than half the world’s population using a mobile phone, we can expand the reach of the Web in a way that almost defies imagination. I hope you join us for the ride, for what a ride it will be.

Thanks for reading,
Jon S. von Tetzchner

Part 1: Growth

Number of users

In September 2009, Opera Mini had over 35.6 million users, an 11.5% increase from August 2009 and more than 150% compared to September 2008.

Pages transcoded

Opera Mini users viewed nearly 15 billion pages in September 2009. Since August, page-views have gone up 7.2%. Since September 2008, page-views have increased 230%.

Month	Page views
September 2009	14,958,270,625
August 2009	13,949,154,395
July 2009	12,051,716,351
June 2009	10,447,031,428
May 2009	9,641,002,614
April 2009	8,687,835,336
March 2009	8,627,181,759
February 2009	7,347,728,912
January 2009	7,592,623,125
December 2008	6,418,665,392
November 2008	5,703,580,103
October 2008	5,088,923,679
September 2008	4,533,894,901
August 2008	4,172,941,429
July 2008	3,736,244,111
June 2008	3,224,286,622
May 2008	2,947,979,866
April 2008	2,491,451,387
March 2008	2,429,200,080
February 2008	1,883,751,325
January 2008	1,787,235,674
December 2007	1,558,566,188
November 2007	1,414,205,703
October 2007	1,192,916,658

Data consumed

In September 2009, Opera Mini users generated nearly 227 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since August, the data consumed went up by 8.7%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 2.1PB of data in September. Since September 2008, data traffic is up 224%.

Month	Data transfer (MB)
September 2009	226,990,071
August 2009	208,786,577
July 2009	186,996,258
June 2009	168,483,963
May 2009	159,545,769
April 2009	151,023,302
March 2009	148,884,676
February 2009	124,835,298
January 2009	122,005,065
December 2008	103,144,185
November 2008	91,084,753
October 2008	79,167,872
September 2008	70,095,676
August 2008	64,853,884
July 2008	57,824,328
June 2008	50,181,823
May 2008	46,273,165
April 2008	38,264,066
March 2008	35,536,969
February 2008	28,477,270
January 2008	25,437,344
December 2007	21,613,966
November 2007	15,818,999
October 2007	13,412,789

Part 2: Country snapshots for September 2009

Part 3: Spotlight on the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Top 11 countries snapshot

Part 4: Data costs and savings

Since the data is compressed by up to 90%, Opera Mini users potentially save a lot of money. Based on the average cost of browsing the Web on a mobile phone (on a per MB basis), users in the top 10 countries save up to 672 million USD per month, or over 8.1 billion USD per year¹⁾. (This estimate does not take into account pricing for users who have unlimited-use data plans.)

By providing a significant economic advantage to end users, we believe that Opera Mini encourages usage of the mobile Web that would not occur otherwise, especially in places where unlimited-use data plans are uncommon or too expensive. Opera Mini also benefits operators by making the Web available on a wider range of their available handsets and by reducing their bandwidth costs (through the use of Opera Mini’s compression technology).

On a monthly basis, users in the United States and the United Kingdom save the most money using Opera Mini, based on their usage and the average cost of browsing (per MB).

Monthly data costs and savings

Country	Data per user (MB)	Data cost (USD/MB)	Saved (USD)
Russia	7	0.22	13.80
Indonesia	6	0.43	23.50
India	6	0.12	6.90
China	2	1.50	32.50
Ukraine	10	0.17	15.00
South Africa	4	0.27	10.30
United States	6	2.00	100.10
United Kingdom	4	1.68	66.70
Poland	6	0.88	44.00
Vietnam	5	0.61	29.10

1 To calculate this, we looked at the top operators in each country, determined how much they typically charge per MB of browsing, and averaged those figures together. The average cost of browsing in each country was multiplied by the amount of traffic generated in each country, and the resulting totals were summed.

Average monthly data costs in the top 10 countries

Country	Cost per MB (local currency)	Cost per MB (USD)
Russia	6.50 RUB	0.22
Indonesia	4,096 IDR	0.43
India	5.70 INR	0.12
China	10.24 CNY	1.50
Ukraine	1.40 UAH	0.17
South Africa	2 ZAR	0.27
United States	2 USD	2.00
United Kingdom	1.02 GBP	1.68
Poland	2.46 PLN	0.88
Vietnam	10978 VND	0.61