The FINANCIAL -- No need to fear the monthly mobile bill anymore: consumers in the top ten countries save approximately 8.1 billion USD per year using Opera Mini, according to Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report for September 2009.
The report, published monthly, provides information on the top global trends affecting the mobile Web. The full report is available from http://www.opera.com/smw/ (English only). In addition to the data-pricing trends and country snapshots, the report highlights trends, both globally and in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Global trends
In September 2009 more than 35.6 million people used Opera Mini, an 11.5% increase from August 2009 and more than 150% compared to September 2008.
"Those 35.6 million people viewed 15 billion pages in September 2009. Since August, page-views have gone up 7.2%. Since September 2008, page-views have increased 230%. On an average day, Opera Mini users view 500 million Web pages on their phones," Opera says.
Opera Mini users generated nearly 227 million MB of data for operators worldwide in September 2009. Since August, the data consumed went up by 8.7%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%, meaning Opera Mini servers processed up to 2.1 petabytes of data this month. Since September 2008, data traffic is up 224%.
The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage are (in order): Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine , South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Poland and Vietnam. Vietnam joins the top 10 countries for the first time, as Nigeria falls from the top 10.
Opera Mini: The great democratizer
By making mobile data less expensive, Opera Mini drives increased adoption of the mobile Web for consumers and drives additional data revenues and reduced bandwidth costs for operators.
Users in the top 10 countries save up to 672 million USD per month, or approximately 8.1 billion USD per year
On a monthly basis, users in the United States and the United Kingdom save the most money in USD using Opera Mini, based on their usage and the average cost of browsing (per MB).
To calculate these numbers, we looked at the top operators in each country, determined how much they typically charge per MB of browsing, and averaged those figures together. The average cost of browsing in each country was multiplied by the amount of traffic generated in each country, and the resulting totals were summed and compared to the totals for uncompressed data traffic. Our survey only reflects metered rates (cost per MB), not flat-rate subscription options.
Trends in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States
The top 11 countries using Opera Mini in the CIS are: Russia, Ukraine , Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Growth rates in the CIS: Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan lead the top 11 countries in growth of unique users.
Nokia and Sony Ericsson are by far the most popular handset brands chosen by Opera Mini users in the CIS.
What we say
“We are on a mission to bring the Web to everyone, on their terms,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. “More than half the world’s population has a mobile phone. By making the mobile Web more affordable and available on almost any mobile phone, we help democratize it. This means we can expand the reach of the Web in a way that defies imagination.”
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