State of the Mobile Web, December 2009
Welcome to the first State of the Mobile Web Report in 2010. January is a special month for Opera Mini. It was four years ago this month, we made our browser available all over the globe.
Opera Mini officially debuted in November of 2005. At that time, we limited distribution to Sweden and Norway. A limited trial was necessary. We were not sure what the bandwidth costs would be. We were not sure if it would even be a success. Downloading ringtones was one thing; downloading a Web browser to a phone was something else entirely.
During the four years Opera Mini has been available, things have changed. People are accustomed to downloading all manner of applications to their phones. People want the Web on their phones, not its distant cousin, WAP.
Even though these four years have brought many changes, what pleases me more than any statistic or growth figure is that we have remained committed to our original vision for the product. We wanted a browser that could run on almost every phone. We wanted it to display the content people want, and get it to them quickly. Throughout these years, our principles have not wavered.
And the same will be true four years from now.
Thanks for reading,
Jon von Tetzchner,
Co-founder, Opera Software
Highlights
- As shown in Part 1 of the report, Opera Mini saw increases in all three categories of growth in December 2009: unique users, pages viewed and data consumed. Over 46.3 million people use Opera Mini each month, matching the number of Opera’s desktop users for the first time. Over 20 billion pages were served, and we are closing in on 3 petabytes of operator data that Opera Mini compresses for users on a monthly basis.
- Looking at the top 10 countries according to Opera Mini usage (in Part 2 of the report), Ukraine overtook China in December, Vietnam continues its ascent (at the expense of the United Kingdom) and Nigeria is back on the list after a 3-month absence, pushing Poland out of the top 10 for the first time.
- For Part 3 of this month’s report, we looked at countries in Southeast Asia. The top 9 countries using Opera Mini in Southeast Asia are: Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos.
- Some numbers: From December 2008 to December 2009, page views in the top 9 countries of Southeast Asia increased by 599%, unique users increased by 385%, and data transferred increased by 587%.
- Since our last spotlight on Southeast Asia, Malaysia jumped from #4 to #3 and Thailand jumped from #5 to #4.
- Growth rates in Southeast Asia: Vietnam and Indonesia lead the top 9 Southeast Asian countries in terms of page-view growth (1,316.4% and 641.9%, respectively). Vietnam and Indonesia also lead the top 9 Southeast Asian countries in growth of unique users (846.9% and 419.7%, respectively). Brunei leads the top 9 Southeast Asian countries in page views per user, with each user browsing 987 pages on average each month.
- In Southeast Asia among mobile Web users, Google is at the top of the rankings for numerous countries, with the very significant exception of Indonesia where Google is only at #6 and Yahoo! is at #2. This is notable because the vast majority of Opera Mini users in Southeast Asia are in Indonesia.
- Facebook is now the dominant player in Southeast Asia among mobile-Web users, both in Indonesia — where Friendster has fallen to #5 — and the rest of the region, where Facebook is among the top visited sites in numerous countries.
- By far, Opera Mini users in Southeast Asia prefer Nokia handsets.
- Part 4 of this month’s report lists the most popular social-networking sites around the world visited by mobile Web users. Both global and country-specific site rankings are presented.
- Given the popularity of Opera in Russian-speaking countries, VKontakte used to be in the top position (based on unique users), but it was overtaken by Facebook in 2009.
- Twitter was the other big winner in terms of growth in 2009.
- All of the listed social-networking sites, except for Friendster, showed significant user growth (via Opera Mini) in 2009.
Part 1: Growth
Number of users
In December 2009, Opera Mini had over 46.3 million users, an 11.0% increase from November 2009 and more than 159% compared to December 2008.
Pages transcoded
Opera Mini users viewed over 20.7 billion pages in December 2009. Since November, page views have gone up 10.1%. Since December 2008, page views have increased 223%.
| Month | Page views |
|---|---|
| December 2009 | 20,719,112,062 |
| 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 |
Data consumed
In December 2009, Opera Mini users generated over 315 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since November, the data consumed went up by 10.5%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 2.9 PB of data in December. Since December 2008, data traffic is up 206%.
| Month | Data transfer (MB) |
|---|---|
| December 2009 | 315,150,762 |
| 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 |
Part 2: Country snapshots for December 2009
Part 3: Spotlight on Southeast Asia
Highlights
- The top 9 countries using Opera Mini in Southeast Asia are: Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos.
- Some numbers: From December 2008 to December 2009, page views in the top 9 countries of Southeast Asia increased by 599%, unique users increased by 385%, and data transferred increased by 587%.
- Since our last spotlight on Southeast Asia, Malaysia jumped from #4 to #3 and Thailand jumped from #5 to #4.
- Growth rates in Southeast Asia: Vietnam and Indonesia lead the top 9 Southeast Asian countries in terms of page-view growth (1,316.4% and 641.9%, respectively). Vietnam and Indonesia also lead the top 9 Southeast Asian countries in growth of unique users (846.9% and 419.7%, respectively). Brunei leads the top 9 Southeast Asian countries in page views per user, with each user browsing 987 pages on average each month.
- In Southeast Asia among mobile Web users, Google is at the top of the rankings for numerous countries, with the very significant exception of Indonesia where Google is only at #6 and Yahoo! is at #2. This is notable because the vast majority of Opera Mini users in Southeast Asia are in Indonesia.
- Facebook is now the dominant player in Southeast Asia among mobile-Web users, both in Indonesia — where Friendster has fallen to #5 — and the rest of the region, where Facebook is among the top visited sites in numerous countries.
- By far, Opera Mini users in Southeast Asia prefer Nokia handsets.
Top countries snapshot
Part 4: Top social networks in 2009
In this month’s report, we list the most popular social networking sites around the world, visited by mobile Web users. Both global and country-specific site rankings are presented.
Global
- Given the popularity of Opera in Russian-speaking countries, VKontakte used to be at position one (based on unique users), but it was overtaken by Facebook in 2009.
- Twitter was the other big winner in terms of growth in 2009.
- All of the listed social networking sites, except for Friendster, showed significant user growth (via Opera Mini) in 2009.
| Social networking site | Growth rate in 2009 (users) |
|---|---|
| facebook.com (1) | 619% |
| vkontakte.ru (1) | 107% |
| odnoklassniki.ru (2) | 117% |
| my.opera.com (new) | 127% |
| orkut.com (1) | 173% |
| friendster.com (3) | -29% |
| spaces.ru (new) | 271% |
| twitter.com (new) | 2,859% |
| myspace.com (1) | 84% |
| peperonity.com (4) | 92% |
Top 10 countries
Methodology
To adjust for tracking inaccuracies in late 2008, the US numbers used in this month’s report are estimates based on data points interpolated between October 2008 and January 2009 (assuming linear growth).
* Due to a miscount in the number of unique users, this number was updated from the original number presented in the report.
Other formats
- Printable version (PDF, 184kB)
- Opera Mini data sheet (Excel, 37kB)
Related resources
Recent reports
- A quick look at early adopters on Android
- Opera Web Pass insight
- Opera on mobile phones experience record growth
- The top local domains of Europe
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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