State of the Mobile Web, January 2011
Experts all have some date when they claim the mobile Web will overtake the PC web — we’re watching that transition now. But rather than think of numbers, we think of people.
Opera Software ships two products for mobile browsing: the light-weight Opera Mini browser and the full-featured Opera Mobile browser. Today, we celebrate that, each month more than a hundred million people all over the world use these two products to gain knowledge, share their stories and be entertained. In addition, more than 50 million people use Opera browser on their computers.
100 million is the beginning of a new era for the Web. In the next few years, hundreds of millions of people will take their first baby steps online. They will make their voices heard across their country, and around the world. They will not only discover new ideas, but contribute their own. We defend those voices, and celebrate those ideas. It is why we believe access to the Web is a universal right, and no device is more universal than a mobile phone.
Happy browsing!
Jon von Tetzchner,
Co-founder, Opera Software
- Part 1: Special feature — One hundred million users
- Part 2: Growth
- Part 3: Country snapshots for January 2011
- Part 4: Regional spotlight — Southeast Asia
Part 1: Special feature — One hundred million users
In this month’s State of the Mobile Web report, we are highlighting a major milestone in the growth of the mobile Web. When we combine the number of people who used the Opera Mini browser (90.36 million) in January with the approximate number of Opera Mobile (15 million) users in January, we get over 100 million people who are using Opera browsers on their handsets. That number only includes people who have downloaded the public version of the Opera Mini browser; it does not include people who use Opera Mini instances that are preinstalled on phones by operators. As such, 100 million is actually an underestimate, but we are not concerned, as that number will be eclipsed shortly. Opera Mini’s increasing growth rate over the last five years has been nothing short of astounding, and our expectations are high for 2011 and beyond.
This illustration is available for free editorial use (PDF, 11.6 MB).
Consider these numbers:
- Between January 2006 and January 2007, the number of Opera Mini users increased by 1.9 million.
- Between January 2007 and January 2008, the number of Opera Mini users increased by 5.3 million.
- Between January 2008 and January 2009, the number of Opera Mini users increased by 12.4 million.
- Between January 2009 and January 2010, the number of Opera Mini users increased by 29.8 million.
- Between January 2010 and January 2011, the number of Opera Mini users increased by 40.6 million.
Based on that growth trend, we think there is legitimate cause to say that mobile web browsing is the wave of the future, a future we are helping to create via our mission of providing the best Internet experience on all devices.
Part 2: Growth
The Opera Mini browser saw significant increases in all three categories of growth in January 2011: unique users, pages viewed and data consumed. In all, 90.3 million people used the Opera Mini browser in January, 52.3 billion pages were served and 7.4 petabytes of operator data were compressed for Opera Mini users.
Number of users
In January 2011, the Opera Mini browser had over 90.3 million users, a 5.6% increase from December 2010. Since January 2010, the number of unique users has increased 81.6%.
Pages transcoded
Opera Mini users viewed over 52.3 billion pages in January 2011. Since December, page views have gone up 12.1%. Since January 2010, page views have increased 124.2%.
| Month | Page views |
|---|---|
| January 2011 | 52,377,317,703 |
| December 2010 | 46,725,301,390 |
| November 2010 | 44,652,355,113 |
| October 2010 | 41,623,101,976 |
| September 2010 | 36,972,736,551 |
| August 2010 | 33,923,604,102 |
| July 2010 | 29,679,113,203 |
| June 2010 | 27,350,331,025 |
| May 2010 | 28,325,159,098 |
| April 2010 | 26,311,685,380 |
| March 2010 | 25,898,747,364 |
| February 2010 | 22,055,615,946 |
| 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 |
Data consumed
In January 2011, Opera Mini users generated over 804 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since December, the data consumed went up by 13.8%. Data in the Opera Mini browser is compressed by up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 7.4 petabytes of data in January. Since January 2010, data traffic is up 138.5%.
| Month | Data transfer (MB) |
|---|---|
| January 2011 | 804,000,878 |
| December 2010 | 706,327,921 |
| November 2010 | 677,508,852 |
| October 2010 | 616,192,761 |
| September 2010 | 535,337,310 |
| August 2010 | 489,402,631 |
| July 2010 | 445,158,599 |
| June 2010 | 416,406,077 |
| May 2010 | 433,688,140 |
| April 2010 | 398,617,291 |
| March 2010 | 396,171,723 |
| February 2010 | 330,601,107 |
| 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 |
Part 3: Country snapshots for January 2011
Top 10
Vietnam passed Nigeria in terms of total Opera Mini users in the month of January. Egypt, Kenya and Bangladesh all went up in the ranking of top 20 countries.
Countries 11-20
Part 4: Regional spotlight — Southeast Asia
Highlights
- The top 10 countries using the Opera Mini browser in Southeast Asia are Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
- Some numbers: From January 2010 to January 2011, page views in the top 10 countries of Southeast Asia increased by 45%, unique users increased by 63% and data transferred increased by 75%.
- Growth rates in Southeast Asia: Cambodia and the Philippines lead the top 10 countries of the region in terms of page-view growth (567.3 % and 469.5 %, respectively). The Philippines and Vietnam lead the top 10 countries of the region in growth of unique users (346.4 % and 164.9 %, respectively). The Philippines and Cambodia lead the top 10 countries of the region in growth of data transferred (405.4 % and 353.7 %, respectively). Brunei leads the top 10 countries of the region in page views per user, with each user browsing 2,015 pages on average each month.
- Google, Facebook, and YouTube are among the most popular sites in the top countries of Southeast Asia.
- We looked at the top 10 handsets used in each of the top 10 countries in Southeast Asia. Out of the 100 total handsets listed, 88 of them were Nokia, 6 of them were Apple, 3 of them were Sony Ericsson, 2 of them were Huawei and 1 was a BlackBerry. Interestingly, the Apple iPhone was the top device used by Opera Mini users in Myanmar.
Top 10 Countries Snapshot
Other formats
- Printable version (PDF, 332kB)
- Opera Mini data sheet (Excel, 33kB)
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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