Opera tops 100 million mobile web users, expands to iPad

More than 100 million mobile subscribers worldwide now access an Opera Software browser each month, the firm reports. Opera Mini now boasts 90.4 million monthly users globally, with Opera Mobile adding roughly 15 million, extending the company's combined reach to 105 million mobile consumers. Opera adds that total does not include users who have downloaded the public version of Opera Mini browser--nor does it account for users accessing Opera Mini browsers pre-installed by the company's operator partners, meaning the 100 million benchmark in fact underestimates its true worldwide userbase.

Opera adds that the total number of Opera Mini users grew by 40.6 million between January 2010 and January 2011, with U.S. users increasing 20.6 percent and pageviews up 79.1 percent during that timeframe. American users now average 438 pageviews per month. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) remains the leading U.S. mobile website in terms of unique visitors per month, followed in descending order by Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Yahoo.

In related news, Opera said it will unveil a new version of Opera Mini optimized for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad tablet during next week's Mobile World Congress 2011 event in Barcelona. Opera Mini for Apple's iPhone launched in April 2010. Upgraded versions of Opera Mini for iPhone, Android, J2ME, BlackBerry and Symbian are also forthcoming, as are Opera Mobile updates for Android and Symbian.

For more:
- read this release

Related articles:
Opera adding HTML5, Flash support to Android browser
Opera teams with Netsweeper for mobile content filtering
Opera introduces Open Mobile Ad Exchange
Apple approves Opera Mini browser for iPhone