Oslo, Norway - August 8, 2006 - Opera Software today announced that
Opera Mini users have surfed one billion Web pages since the
browser's official launch seven months ago. The most popular sites
are Google search, community and dating sites, e-mail and domains for
more grown-up entertainment. The little browser has been embraced by
more than five million active users worldwide, and is increasingly
pre-installed on mobile phones from leading operators and mobile
phone manufacturers across the globe.
The aggregated statistics reveal that Google search is the most
popular .com site, followed by Gmail.com, Friendster.com,
MySpace.com, Yahoo Messenger and hi5.com. This suggests that finding
information and staying connected while on-the-go are the two most
popular activities for people when using the Opera Mini mobile
browser. Other popular sites include news, maps and entertainment
such as USAToday.com, news.bbc.co.uk, mapquest.com and eBay in the
United States, UK and Germany.
"Mobile phone users are short-changed in the range of content offered
by most service providers," says Tony Cripps, senior analyst at Ovum.
"Enabling handsets to access the World Wide Web greatly improves this
situation, extending both mainstream and niche preferences to the
mobile domain and helping to drive data traffic."
Most Opera Mini usage comes from Russia and the United States,
closely followed by India, Scandinavia and the UK. Countries with low
PC penetration but high mobile phone penetration, such as South
Africa and Bangladesh, also rank high on the list. This may confirm
the importance of having a mobile friendly Web that is accessible
from mobile devices for the millions of people who do not have access
to a PC, but own a mobile phone.
"Today is not just a great day for Opera; it's a pivotal day for the
mobile entertainment industry and operators worldwide," says Jon S.
von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. "Opera Mini's success shows that
mobile data services have a massive potential as long as the quality
of the service matches and exceeds people's expectations. Reaching
one billion page views in just seven months is a true milestone,
proving that people are so satisfied with the performance and
usability of Opera Mini that they use the browser actively and on a
regular basis."
Many leading operators and handset manufacturers have already
realized the great potential of Opera Mini. T-Mobile is
pre-installing Opera Mini on selected handsets as part of its
Web'n'Walk offering in Europe, and several other leading mobile
players are signing up to deliver the Opera Mini Web experience to
mobile phone users around the world. A long list of mobile content
providers are promoting customized versions of Opera Mini to
customers in order to increase usage and customer loyalty. The free
browser has become one of the world's most popular mobile Java
applications in just seven months.
About Opera Mini
Opera Mini is a free mobile Web browser designed to bring the real
Web to the world's mobile phones. The free Opera Mini mobile Web
browser was launched worldwide in January, and is available both as a
free download from http://mini.opera.com as well as through
pre-installments on selected handsets from leading operators and
handset manufacturers such as T-Mobile, debitel and Motorola. Read
more at http://www.opera.com/mini
- Get yours from http://mini.opera.com
- Illustrations and graphics: http://www.opera.com/press/images/mini/
About Opera Software
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 small size, performance and
standards-compliance, 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 www.opera.com.
