Opera: Mobile web views grow 18% month-over-month

More than 20 million people worldwide now use the Opera Mini mobile web browser each month, up 12 percent from December 2008 totals, according to browser development firm Opera Software's January 2009 State of the Mobile Web report. Opera adds that Opera Mini users viewed approximately 7.6 billion pages in January--both page views and data transfers increased 18 percent month-over-month, indicating that more subscribers are using the mobile web and that they are using the mobile web even more frequently.

Opera also notes that Ukraine, India and South Africa all made forward strides in the global ranking of countries using Opera Mini--among the top 35 countries using the browser, Armenia, Nigeria and Egypt showed the most growth between January 2008 and January 2009 in terms of unique users. Armenia, a nation with 3 million residents, experienced 2,800 percent growth over the previous 12 months, and in January reported more page views per users than any other market in the Opera Top 35.

The January 2009 State of the Mobile Web report also turns its attention to the Middle East, where Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon and Yemen are the top 10 nations using the Opera Mini browser. Opera notes that Nokia and Sony Ericsson are by far the most popular handset brands among Mini users in the Middle East, and Facebook ranks as a leading mobile web destination in nine of the 10 countries under the microscope. In addition, Google is the region's premier search engine, ahead of rivals including Yahoo and Live Search in each of the top 10 countries.

For more on Opera's January 2009 State of the Mobile Web report:
- read this release [1]

Related articles:
Opera [2]: Facebook, vKontakte lead mobile social networking
Opera [3]: Mobile web views approach 6B in November
Opera [4]: Mobile web page views grow to 5B in October