Opera's recent State of the Mobile Web report, which took a look at Opera Mini usage in Europe and North America, revealed a few interesting bits. FIRST: You just love yourself some Opera on the go. SECOND: Your handset of choice to view it on is the Bold. THIRD: You may want a cool phone with mobile Web, but a pre-teen from the Phillipines could probably take you in a fight over one.
Here are a few nuggets of truthiness from the report:
• AT&T's BlackBerry Bold is one of the most preferred handsets by Opera Mini users in the U.S., even though it only debuted last month. Not bad for a freshman phone.
• This year, Facebook beat out MySpace on the U.S.'s top 10 social networking list for the first time. (These gladiators will continue to do battle in the mobile arena. They have to. There's a whole armada of veteran, newbie and international players ready to fight?although I doubt they?re sweating over Poland's Nasza Klasa or Russia's vKontakte?at least for now.)
• In November alone, Opera Mini users viewed more than 5.7 billion pages and trafficked more than 82.9 million MB of data worldwide. That's compressed data, folks. Uncompressed, that's equivalent to viewing more than 829 million MB of data. (Since November 2007, there's been a 303% growth in page views and a 423% increase in data transfers.)
And that's nothing. Consider this:
While we may have our PCs and broadband, we still like our mobile Web. Just this year alone, Opera Mini page views grew 200% in the U.S. In Sweden (which is, by the way, so techie that my eyes well up with jealousy), page views still grew by 58% this year. And though the land of the Vikings was one of the first countries to get Opera Mini, in 2005, its usage continues to grow.
But as much as we may like cruising on the fly, it's more of a lifestyle choice, not a necessity. Move to a less developed region, like Africa or Southeast Asia, and that changes; mobile Web becomes crucial. These regions have shown a ridiculously huge increase this year. (Like, quadruple-digit page view growth.)
As far as I'm concerned, that explains why little kids in Thailand can break speed limits with their texting. And why so many cool (and sometimes goofy) gadgets debut over there first.
Interested in the full report? Hop over here for more.
