Russian Opera Mini spurt - 157% in one year

Opera's mobile report presents 35 leading countries and data on mobile Internet in the Middle East

Oslo, Norway - February 25, 2009
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Only facts

- Russia continues to maintain the leadership position identified in our first mobile report. Over the past year, the number of Opera Mini users in Russia has grown by 157%. In January 2009, each user looked at an average of 416 pages. The full report on the status of the mobile Internet is available at www.opera.com/smw (in English).

- The total number of Opera Mini users in the world in January 2009 increased by 12.1% and for the first time exceeded 20 million unique users. The number of monthly viewed pages increased even more significantly - by 18% compared with the previous month and amounted to 7.6 billion web pages. Since December 2008, Opera Mini users have generated over 122 terabytes of data for mobile operators around the world.

- On average, Opera Mini browser compresses data up to 90%. In the case of transferring this data in uncompressed form, the total traffic would amount to 1.2 billion MB. For the first time in the history of this browser, Opera Mini servers processed more than 1 Petabyte of data for Opera Mini users in a month.

- The most explosive growth in the number of Opera Mini users in the period from January 2008 to January 2009 was recorded in Armenia, where this figure was more than 2800%. Nigeria is in second place - 1854%. Among the most notable results are Egypt (1391%), the Philippines (570%) and Kazakhstan (419%).

- Armenia also leads in the number of pages viewed by Opera Mini users during the month. In January 2009, this indicator was 669 pages on average for each user from Armenia.

- The top ten leaders in the number of Opera Mini users in the Middle East are as follows: Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon and Yemen.

Report Basic Data

The monthly report looks at 35 countries leading in the number of Opera Mini users, so the top ten countries may include countries with the most varied levels of user growth per year. For example, Indonesia showed an annual increase (GP) of 312%, but in terms of the total number of users, it ranks only second.

Top ten countries in terms of the number of unique Opera Mini users:

Country ................................... GP ............. ............ Average page views (January 2009)
Russia ................................ 156.89% ............... ............................ 416
Indonesia .......................... 312.08% ..................... ...................... 507
Ukraine ............................. 124.18% .................. .......................... 530
China ................................... 11.16% ............ ................................ 216
India ................................. 166.72% .............. .............................. 354
South Africa .................... 93.52% .......................... .................. 264
United States ..................................... 73.01% .......... .................................. 222
Great Britain .................. 63.40% ............................. ............... 245
Poland ............................... 147.15% ................ ........................... 178
Germany .............................. 51.83% ................. .......................... 113

It should be noted that even in countries that are in the top ten since the beginning of 2008, the growth in the number of users is still high, especially in developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. In the top ten, only China showed GP less than 50%.

Also, this mobile report contains data on the Middle East. The most active peacemaker, reconciling people from different countries, was the social network Facebook: it entered the top ten most visited websites in 9 out of 10 countries in the Middle East, leading in the number of Opera Mini users. The ranking was as follows: Iran (No. 9), Israel (No. 1), Saudi Arabia (No. 10), Syria (No. 3), Jordan (No. 3), United Arab Emirates (No. 3), Oman (No. 9), Kuwait (# 4) and Lebanon (# 1). The report also contains data on the most popular mobile devices and a list of the ten most popular websites in the leading countries by the number of Opera Mini users.

Data for Russia

- Yandex and mail.ru continue stubborn struggle for second place in Russia.

Leaders in Russia (by unique visitors)
vkontakte.ru
yandex.ru (previously 3)
mail.ru (previously 2)
odnoklassniki.ru
rambler.ru
google.com
my.opera.com
wikipedia.org
wapos.ru
seclub.org

Our opinion

“Looking at the growth statistics of mobile Internet usage over the past year, one can see that mobile devices are becoming the main means of viewing the worldwide network in many parts of the world,” said Jon von Tachner, CEO, Opera. “Developing countries may lead in this context due to the fact that a personal computer there is a rarer device than a mobile phone, but tangible growth rates in developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom or Germany say that the whole world is moving towards this direction. This statistic confirms once again how important it is to equip all devices capable of connecting to the world wide web with a high-quality web browser. ”

About Opera Mini browser

More than 20 million users have already learned how Opera Mini can dramatically change their Internet experience. This browser not only delivers the web pages as quickly as possible to a mobile phone, but also displays them in the same way as on a regular computer. Opera Mini also includes Opera Link, a free service that allows you to synchronize your bookmarks, Speed ​​Dial and Personal Panel elements between all your web browsers. The Opera Mini browser is available for download completely free of charge at www.opera.com (You may need to enable the data service of your mobile operator).

About Opera Software ASA

The company Opera Software ASA has opened up new possibilities for viewing web pages on PCs, mobile phones and other Internet devices. The cross-platform browser technology developed by Opera is known for its functionality, standards compliance and small size, while providing users with faster, safer and more dynamic access to the Internet. The main office of Opera Software is located in Oslo, Norway, with offices around the world. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the exchange code OPERA. More information is available at www.opera.com .

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