A mobile browser saves public $27bn

Opera Mini saves worldwide consumers more than 2.2 billion Dollars each month on their mobile data bills, according to Opera’s newest State of the Mobile Web Report and in South African users save 6 USD per month, or almost 42 Rands.

Consumers in the United States and Nigeria benefit the most from Opera Mini’s unique compression technology, which reduces the size of web pages up to 90 percent (%). Using prevailing metered rates, United States consumers could save 141 USD on average each month, while Opera Mini users in Nigeria save 44 USD each month.

Opera’s State of the Mobile Web Report, published monthly, provides information on the top global trends affecting the mobile Web. The full report is available from http://www.opera.com/smw/ (English only). This month’s report includes in-depth profiles on the top 20 countries for Opera Mini usage, a spotlight on mobile browsing trends in the European Unio,n and a look at how much money consumers can save using Opera Mini.

Trends in South Africa (ranked sixth worldwide for Opera Mini usage)

– Page-view growth since September 2009: 99.7 %

– Unique-user growth since September 2009: 66.8 %

– Data transfer growth since September 2009: 71.5 %

– Page views per user: 428

– Data transferred per user (MB): 4

– Data transferred per page view (KB): 11

– The mobile social networking site, myGamma, is new to the Top 10 list.

Top 10 sites in South Africa by unique users (change from previous month)

1. facebook.com

2. google.com

3. mxit.com (up from 5)

4. wikipedia.org (down from 3)

5. youtube.com (down from 4)

6. mygamma.com (new)

7. getjar.com (down from 6)

8. thumbtribe.mobi (up from 9)

9. my.opera.com (down from 7)

10. yahoo.com (down from 8)

Top handsets for September 2010

1. Nokia 5130 XpressMusic

2. Nokia 2700c

3. Nokia 2330c

4. Samsung SGH-E250

5. Samsung GT-S5233a ‚Star‚

6. Nokia 5000d

7. LG KS360

8. Sony Ericsson W205

9. Nokia 7100s

10. Nokia 2680s

Saving money with Opera Mini

Since mobile data is compressed by up to 90%, Opera Mini users potentially save a lot of money on pay-as-you-go plans. Based on the average cost of browsing the Web on a mobile phone (on a per-MB basis), users in the top 10 countries save over 802 million USD per month, or over 9.6 billion USD per year. Users worldwide save more than 2.2 billion USD per month, or over 27.4 billion USD per year.

On a monthly basis, individual users in the United States and Nigeria save the most money using Opera Mini, based on their usage and the average cost of browsing (per MB).

A cost savings calculator is included in the report, so visitors can see how much Opera Mini could save them.

Global trends

– In September 2010, Opera Mini had over 71.2 million users, a 7.1% increase from August 2010. Since September 2009, the number of unique users has increased 100.1%

– Opera Mini users viewed over 36.9 billion pages in September 2010. Since August, page views have gone up 9.0%. Since September 2009, page views have increased 147.2%.

– Opera Mini users generated over 535.3 million MB of data for operators worldwide. Since August, the data consumed went up by 9.4%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed by up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 4.9 petabytes of data in September. Since September 2009, data traffic is up 135.8%.

What we say

‚Keeping costs low is about more than just saving money: it is about making the Web more accessible to a wider range of people,‚ said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera. ‚That is why we focus so heavily on making Opera Mini work on all phones, and, in fact, why we originally founded Opera. We believe access to the Web is a universal right, and we hope that by keeping costs low, we play a part in helping people connect, on any device, wherever they are.‚