State of the Mobile Web, January 2010
The beginning of 2010 has been quite eventful for Opera Mini. Our tiny, yet powerful, browser showed no signs of slowing down. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we highlighted our tremendous user growth. Now, 50 million people actively use Opera Mini every month.
But, we also crossed several other thresholds. In January, Opera Mini users viewed 23 billion pages, and our servers processed more than 3 petabytes of data. This means, each month, our servers crunch an amount of data equivalent to the entire repository of the Internet Archive, with a full-size copy of Avatar thrown in for good measure.
However, our job with this report is to not only provide the top line stats, but also dive deeper to understand how people use the Web on their phones. The mobile Web exists beyond simple page-view metrics or the latest user figures. As with any technology, what matters most is how it helps people accomplish a task or reach a goal, no matter how small or large.
With that in mind, this month we look at mobile search. Mobile search and social networking are the twin pillars of the mobile Web. We found that the Opera Mini users in Vietnam and India use search portals the most, while the opposite is true of users in Ukraine.
We also take a journey to the Middle East, where Iraq and Syria have seen impressive leaps in the number of unique users and page views, respectively.
Happy browsing,
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 January 2010: unique users, pages viewed and data consumed. About 50 million people used Opera Mini in January, over 23 billion pages were served, and we passed 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), Nigeria — in only its second month back on the list after a 3-month absence — overtook Vietnam in January.
- For Part 3 of this month’s report, we looked at countries in the Middle East. The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in the Middle East are Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Lebanon, Iraq and Kuwait.
- Some numbers: From January 2009 to January 2010, page views in the top 10 countries of the Middle East increased by 164%, unique users increased by 137% and data transferred increased by 114%.
- Since our last spotlight on the Middle East, Syria jumped from #4 to #2, United Arab Emirates jumped from #5 to #4, Jordan jumped from #7 to #6, Lebanon jumped from #9 to #8 and Iraq is new to the list.
- Growth rates in the Middle East: Lebanon and Syria lead the top 10 Middle Eastern countries in terms of page-view growth (753.6% and 693.8%, respectively). United Arab Emirates and Iraq lead the top 10 Middle Eastern countries in growth of unique users (655.6% and 558.3%, respectively). Lebanon leads the top 10 Middle Eastern countries in page views per user, with each user browsing 557 pages on average each month.
- In the Middle East, among mobile Web users, Google is at the top of the rankings in 9 out of the top 10 countries. In Israel, Google is number 2 (behind Facebook).
- In the Middle East, Facebook is also very popular, taking the #2 spot in six of the top 10 countries, the #3 spot in three of the top 10 countries and the #1 spot in one of the top 10 countries.
- By far, Opera Mini users in the Middle East prefer Nokia handsets. Looking at the top 10 countries in the Middle East, and the top 10 handsets in each of those countries, only 9 out of the 100 spots were filled by non-Nokia handsets.
- Part 4 of this month’s report examines mobile search usage. We analyzed traffic to the search portals in the top 10 countries.
- Opera Mini users in Vietnam and India are the biggest users of search portals. In Vietnam, 30.9% of page views are from search portals, and users viewed an average of 63.6 search portal pages per month. In India, 22.1% of page views are from search portals, and users viewed an average of 75.8 search-portal pages per month.
- Opera Mini users in Ukraine use search portals the least: 0.8% of page views are from search portals, and users view only an average of 6.1 search-portal pages per month.
Part 1: Growth
Number of users
In January 2010, Opera Mini had about 50 million users, a 7.4% increase from December 2009 and up 149% compared to January 2009.
Pages transcoded
Opera Mini users viewed over 23.3 billion pages in January 2010. Since December, page views have gone up 12.7%. Since January 2009, page views have increased 208%.
| Month | Page views |
|---|---|
| January 2010 | 23,356,863,511 |
| 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 |
Data consumed
In January 2010, Opera Mini users generated over 337 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since December, the data consumed went up by 7.0%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed by up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 3.1 PB of data in January. Since January 2009, data traffic is up 176%.
| Month | Data transfer (MB) |
|---|---|
| January 2010 | 337,088,690 |
| 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 |
Part 2: Country snapshots for January 2010
Part 3: Spotlight on Middle East
Highlights
- The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in the Middle East are Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Lebanon, Iraq and Kuwait.
- Some numbers: From January 2009 to January 2010, page views in the top 10 countries of the Middle East increased by 164%, unique users increased by 137% and data transferred increased by 114%.
- Since our last spotlight on the Middle East, Syria jumped from #4 to #2, United Arab Emirates jumped from #5 to #4, Jordan jumped from #7 to #6, Lebanon jumped from #9 to #8 and Iraq is new to the list.
- Growth rates in the Middle East: Lebanon and Syria lead the top 10 Middle Eastern countries in terms of page-view growth (753.6% and 693.8%, respectively). United Arab Emirates and Iraq lead the top 10 Middle Eastern countries in growth of unique users (655.6% and 558.3%, respectively). Lebanon leads the top 10 Middle Eastern countries in page views per user, with each user browsing 557 pages on average each month.
- In the Middle East, among mobile Web users, Google is at the top of the rankings in 9 out of the top 10 countries. In Israel, Google is number 2 (behind Facebook).
- In the Middle East, Facebook is also very popular, taking the #2 spot in six of the top 10 countries, the #3 spot in three of the top 10 countries, and the #1 spot in one of the top 10 countries.
- By far, Opera Mini users in the Middle East prefer Nokia handsets. Looking at the top 10 countries in the Middle East, and the top 10 handsets in each of those countries, only 9 out of the 100 spots were filled by non-Nokia handsets.
Top countries snapshot
Part 4: Mobile search in January 2010
This month, we take a closer look at traffic to the search portals in the top 10 countries.
Highlights
- Opera Mini users in Vietnam and India are the biggest users of search portals. In Vietnam, 30.9% of page views are from search portals, and users viewed an average of 63.6 search portal pages per month. In India, 22.1% of page views are from search portals, and users viewed an average of 75.8 search-portal pages per month.
- Opera Mini users in Ukraine use search portals the least: 0.8% of page views are from search portals, and users view only an average of 6.1 search-portal pages per month.
Note: All search providers with less than 0.01% of page views have been omitted.
Methodology
As far as possible, we have tried to isolate search as an activity from other activities such as mail, messenger and similar activities which search portals such as Google, Yandex, Yahoo! and Baidu offer. However, due to the fact that we presently only aggregate subdomains our users visit, this means that we can only weed out subdomains such as mail.google.com, finance.yahoo.com and so on. The usage of subdomains vary among search portals; Google and Yandex generally redirect most activities apart from search to separate subdomains (like mail.google.com), while Yahoo! and Baidu generally do not. This means that large parts of the traffic to Yahoo! in some places (like Nigeria and Indonesia) probably consist of messaging and/or mail.
We presently only aggregate data for the top 500 subdomains, so percentages of total page views are based on page views of search portal pages in the top 500 subdomains as a percentage of total page views for these top 500 subdomains. This percentage is again multiplied by total page views to calculate the average number of search portal page views per unique user.
Other formats
- Printable version (PDF, 238kB)
- Opera Mini data sheet (Excel, 29kB)
Related resources
Recent reports
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- Opera on mobile phones experience record growth
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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