Local services, sites key to success of mobile Web: Opera

By Dan Butcher

March 26, 2009

Opera launches Mini 5 beta

Local services and sites are the key to the success of the mobile Web, according to Opera's new State of the Mobile Web report.

Opera Mini increased its total consumer user-base to more than 20.5 million, representing more than 160 percent growth since Feb. 2008. Opera Mini users viewed 7.3 billion pages, a 290 percent increase over February 2008.

"Due to the shortened month, we expected to see small gains or declines in the total users, page views and data transfers," said Thomas Ford, communications manager for Opera, Oslo, Norway. "We were pleased that we actually gained users, but what really surprised us was the data transfers.

"While the number of pages viewed declined slightly, the amount of data transferred rose," he said. "We take this to mean that people are viewing more data intensive pages and using more complex, interactive pages."

Opera Mini servers processed more than 1.2 petabytes of data in February, generating more than 124 million MB of data traffic for carriers worldwide.

Google is the No. 1 site on Opera Mini

Since February 2008, data transfers have grown 338 percent.

"This bodes very well for the future of the mobile Web and should further underscore the value of the mobile Web to content providers and advertisers," Mr. Ford said. "People are spending more time, not less, with the Web on their mobile devices."

Opera Software ASA's cross-platform Web browser technology is known for its standards compliance and small size, while giving mobile consumers an online experience, even on feature phones.

MySpace is the No. 3 site on Opera Mini

The full Opera State of the Mobile Web report is available at http://www.opera.com/smw.

As usual, Opera's list of the top 10 mobile Web sites in the U.S. is stable, with the exception of Yahoo dropping two places from position 5 to position 7.

Top 10 sites in the U.S. based on number of unique users is Google.com, Facebook.com, MySpace.com, Wikipedia.org, NYTimes.com (up from 6), YouTube.com (up from 7), Yahoo.com (down from 5), GameJump.com, AccuWeather.com and My.Opera.com (back on the list).

Opera's latest report turned its attention to Russia and former Soviet republics.

Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are the top three countries for mobile Web use in the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS.

Yandex and VKontakte replaced Google and Facebook, respectively, as the top search engine and social network in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Nokia is by far the most popular handset brand used by Opera Mini users in the CIS, followed by Sony Ericsson, which boasts the No. 1 handset in Armenia.

Russia and Ukraine rank high on the top countries for Opera Mini usage every month. However, there are many Opera Mini users in other CIS countries, such as Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Page-view statistics provide a good indication of how much Opera Mini is actually used by the people who have downloaded it.

Uzbekistan led the way in the region with 2,600 percent growth in the past year, while Moldova was second with more than 900 percent growth.

Other countries also saw impressive page-view growth numbers despite having been heavy Opera Mini users even in the past year.

Page views in Russia were up almost 270 percent, while page views in Ukraine grew just under 400 percent over the past year.

Services targeted to Russians and users in the CIS remain popular, according to Opera.

Yandex is the main search engine for most of these countries, and Google ranked ahead of Yandex only in Kyrgyzstan.

Vkontakte is the top social network, although in some countries it is locked in a heated battle with Odnoklassniki.

Georgia is the only country that does not feature Vkontakte in its top 10 sites.

Any advertising via Opera Mini is actually done by the Web sites themselves.

"We do not have ads in Opera Mini," Mr. Ford said. "We do, however, have a download portal that integrates content from several content partners.

"In general, though, we believe mobile advertising is a vast opportunity in Russia and the CIS countries," he said. "With more users turning to mobile devices as their first means to access the Web, we think the potential is enormous."

In some developing countries, mobile advertising is expected to overtake traditional Web advertising this year.

"All these signs point to favorable conditions for mobile advertising in Russia and the CIS region moving forward," Mr. Ford said. "The sites themselves can monetize through their own strategies, be it advertising, premium content or other forms.

"Our job is to serve the content quickly and reliably," he said.