Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela lead Latin America in adoption of the mobile
Web according to the newest "State of the Mobile Web" report issued by
Opera Software today. The report also specifies the Top 10 most popular
sites ranked according to unique visitors in each of the top countries for
mobile Web usage in Latin America. Google leads the way in most countries,
followed by some of the most popular social-networking sites. Opera's
"State of the Mobile Web" report, published each month, is available to
the public at http://www.opera.com/mobile_report/ in both HTML and PDF
formats.
Additionally, statistics from July reveal that the mobile Web continues to
expand worldwide. The number of people using Opera Mini, the world's most
popular mobile Web browser with 15.8 million unique monthly users, grew
9.4% month over month, while page views grew almost 16% in the same period.
"We're pleased to see such considerable growth and interest in accessing
the Web from mobile phones globally," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera.
"But the pace of adoption in Latin America is increasing rapidly. The
reasons behind this growth are two-fold. First, consumers are willing to
purchase data plans because of the cost savings associated with Opera
Mini's data compression. They are able to surf more. Second, 80% of phones
in Latin America can support a lightweight Web browser. Giving those
consumers a better Web experience helps drive both interest in and
adoption of the mobile Web. Operators in Latin America are now embarking
on ambitious mobile Web strategies as they realize the business benefit
and increased revenue of offering full Web browsing to their customers."
Select highlights for Latin America:
- Brazil leads the way in mobile Web usage in Latin America, followed
closely by Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina.
- Orkut, metroFLOG and hi5 are the most prevalent social-networking sites
in Latin America, although Facebook is the fourth-most-popular site in
Venezuela.
- Local domains are few and far between in the top 10. Brazil leads all
Latin American countries with two, while most have one or no local domains
in the top 10.
Select global highlights from the July report:
- Mobile Web usage continues to grow in significant categories: unique
users, pages viewed and data traffic.
- More than 15.8 million people used Opera Mini in July, a 9.4% increase
from June.
- Those 15.8 million people viewed 3.7 billion pages in July, averaging
236 pages each. Since June, page views have gone up 15.9%.
- Data traffic grew in line with the page-view increase. Opera Mini users
generated 53.8 million MB of data for operators worldwide, a 15.2%
increase over last month. Because this data is compressed an average of
90%, Opera Mini users would have viewed more 538 million MB of data in the
month of July.
As the world's most popular Web browser for mobile phones, Opera Mini
provides an elegant, fast and rich Web experience. While some Web browsers
work on only 20 to 30 phone models, Opera Mini runs on more than 800
different handsets, making it the available to the widest range of
consumers worldwide. Almost every phone with Java can run Opera Mini.
Completely free for anyone to download and use, Opera Mini is available
from http://www.operamini.com/.
Data in the report is based on aggregate and anonymous statistics from
Opera Mini servers. All percentages are based on a snapshot of the Top 100
sites for each region. Beyond providing a snapshot of worldwide browsing
trends, Opera's "State of the Mobile Web" highlights the browsing trends
in the ten countries where Opera Mini is most popular: the United States,
Russia, China, Indonesia, India, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, South
Africa and Ukraine.
About Opera Software ASA
Opera Software ASA has redefined Web browsing for PCs, mobile phones and
other networked devices. Opera's cross-platform Web browser technology is
renowned for its performance, standards compliance and small size, while
giving users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience. Opera
Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices around the world.
The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol
OPERA. Learn more about Opera at http://www.opera.com/.