Opera Mini usage up 157pc YoY!

OSLO, NORWAY: There has been a major jump in usage, page views and data transfers for Opera Mini this month. In March 2009, more than 23 million people used Opera Mini, a 12.1 percent increase from February 2009 and more than 157 percent increase from March 2008.

Those users viewed more than 8.6 billion pages in March 2009. Since February, page views have gone up 17.4 percent. Year over year (YoY), page views have increased 255 percent. The full State of the Mobile Web report is available here! http://www.opera.com/smw/.

The growth in data transfers also highlights the value Opera Mini offers global operators. In March 2009, Opera Mini served 148 million MB of data to handsets worldwide. Since February, the data consumed went up by 19.3 percent.

Data in Opera Mini is compressed 90 percent on average. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed nearly 1.4 PB of data in March. Since March 2008, data traffic is up 319 percent.

A surge of Opera Mini usage in Nigeria pushed that country into the top 10, displacing Germany.

Opera Mini use over the course of a day
We looked at one 24-hour period (Tuesday, March 17) to see how Opera Mini is used throughout the day in the top 10 countries. In this case, we measured usage according to data transferred. For analysis, the 24-hour day was split into six four-hour slices (using local times).

Here is what we observed:
* In all but two of the top 10 countries, the highest level of Opera Mini use is at the tail end of the day -- from 8pm to midnight. In Indonesia, Opera Mini is used most between noon and 4pm. In China, Opera Mini is used most between 8am and noon.
* More than users from any other top 10 country, Nigerians are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 4am and 8am.
* More than users from any other top 10 country, Chinese users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 8am and noon.
* More than users from any other top 10 country, Ukrainian and Chinese users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between noon and 4pm.
* More than users from any other top 10 country, Polish users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 4pm and midnight.
* Users in all of the top 10 countries are least likely to use Opera Mini between the hours of midnight and 8am.
* In all of the top 10 countries, except Indonesia and China, usage of Opera Mini between 4pm and midnight outweighs Opera Mini usage between 8am and 4pm.

The difference in Opera Mini usage during peak hours versus off-peak hours varies in each country. The biggest difference is noticeable in Poland (28 percent between 8pm and midnight versus 5 percent between midnight and 4am). The smallest difference is noticeable in Nigeria (20 percent between 8pm and midnight versus 14 percent between midnight and 4am).

"A mobile phone will be the device most people use to access the Web," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "As millions of people each month discover the Web through Opera Mini, content providers have an incredible opportunity to seize competitive advantage in this new medium. By simply ensuring their content works on any device, they will open themselves to the next generation of Web users."

Snapshot: India
Page-view growth since March 2008: 153 percent
Unique-user growth since March 2008: 53 percent
Page-views per user: 359
This month, GameJump fell off of India's top 10 list. GetJar, on the other hand, is new to the list.

Top 10 sites in India (# of unique users)
google.com
orkut.com
yahoo.com
gmail.com
rediff.com (up from 6)
wikipedia.org (up from 8)
songs.pk
peperonity.com (up from 9)
my.opera.com (up from 10)
getjar.com (new)

Top handsets for March 2009
Nokia N70
Nokia N73
Nokia 3110c
Nokia 6300
Nokia N72
Nokia 3500c
Nokia 6233
Sony Ericsson W200i
Sony Ericsson K750i
Nokia 5310