State of the Mobile Web, November 2009

Here we are at the end of 2009, and we cannot help but notice that Opera Mini has grown by leaps and bounds since the end of last year. Over the last 12 months, Opera Mini has grown furiously in every category of growth: number of unique users, data consumed, and page views.

The number of Opera Mini users more than doubled — from about 16.4 million in November 2008 to 41.7 million in November 2009. This increase shows that our prediction of accelerated growth of the mobile Web has come true. Rapid growth is evident, not only in developed countries, but also (and especially) in developing parts of the world such as Africa, which is the focus of this month’s geographic spotlight.

This month’s report also compares Opera Mini growth rates across different regions around the world. For example, Southeast Asia is the fastest growing region for Opera Mini in terms of page views, number of users, and data transferred. Africa, South Asia, and East Asia, respectively, come next in each of those categories.

Despite tough economic times in the past year, people continue to adopt technology — such as mobile browsing — especially when it helps them overcome their hardships. Our goal at Opera is to facilitate access to the Web across every demographic and in every country of the world — whether it is a farmer in Nigeria or a stockbroker in New York.

In Africa, for example, we saw triple-digit percentage growth in mobile Web usage in just one year. Page views in the top 10 countries increased by 374%, unique users increased by 177%, and the amount of data transferred increased by 183%.

We expect this growing streak to continue for Opera Mini and the mobile Web in general as we usher in a new decade. Happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year!

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

Part 1: Growth

Number of users

In November 2009, Opera Mini had over 41.7 million users, a 5.3% increase from October 2009 and more than 154% increase compared to November 2008.

Pages transcoded

Opera Mini users viewed over 18.8 billion pages in November 2009. Since October, page views have gone up 9.5%. Since November 2008, page views have increased 231%.

Month	Page views
November 2009	18,814,158,683
October 2009	17,179,459,019
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

Data consumed

In November 2009, Opera Mini users generated over 285 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since October, the data consumed went up by 8.3%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 2.6 PB of data in November. Since November 2008, data traffic is up 213%.

Month	Data transfer (MB)
November 2009	285,126,819
October 2009	263,245,795
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

Part 2: Country snapshots for November 2009

Part 3: Spotlight on Africa

Top 10 countries snapshot

Part 4: Regional growth comparisons

• Between November 2008 and November 2009, the fastest growing region in terms of Opera Mini page views was Southeast Asia, followed by Africa and Latin America.
• Between November 2008 and November 2009, the fastest growing region in terms of Opera Mini users was Southeast Asia, followed by South Asia and Africa.
• Between November 2008 and November 2009, the fastest growing region in terms of data transferred using Opera Mini was Southeast Asia, followed by East Asia and Latin America.

Opera Mini regional growth (November 2008 - November 2009)

Region	Page view growth	Unique user growth	Data transfer growth
Europe	107%	73%	107%
CIS	129%	95%	176%
Africa	373%	176%	182%
Latin America	276%	143%	208%
Middle East	136%	102%	90%
North America	240%	105%	148%
East Asia	256%	132%	257%
South Asia	256%	206%	187%
Southeast Asia	575%	362%	580%

Methodology

For this part of the report, we looked at the combined user, page-view, and data-transferred statistics for the top countries in each of the listed regions, and calculated the growth in each of those categories within the time frame November 2008 through November 2009.

Here is a breakdown of the countries we looked at within each region:

• Europe: United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Spain, Slovakia, Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Turkey
• CIS: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan
• Africa: South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Libya, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia, Ghana
• Latin America: Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador
• Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Jordan, Oman, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq
• North America: United States, Canada
• East Asia: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Mongolia
• South Asia: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan
• Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, East Timor, Myanmar

To adjust for tracking inaccuracies in late 2008, the USA numbers used in this month’s report are estimates based on data points interpolated between October 2008 and January 2009 (assuming linear growth).