Opera’s State of Mobile Web Gives Nod to BlackBerry Bold

Opera Mobile watches how its mobile browser is used. Here are there latest findings. It's interesting to note that many of the top handsets are BlackBerry, making Opera a very popular browser on BlackBerry Devices.

United States Stats

Top handsets for November 2008

BlackBerry 8330
BlackBerry 8130
Sony Ericsson W580i
BlackBerry 9000
Nokia N70
BlackBerry 8320
Nokia N73
Samsung i617
Samsung SPH-M800
BlackBerry 8120

Released by AT&T in early November, the BlackBerry Bold made
an immediate impact and is high on the list of top handsets preferred
by Opera Mini users in the US.
Facebook and MySpace are locked in a battle for mobile social
networking supremacy in the United States. For the first time this
year, Facebook has surpassed MySpace on the top 10 list in the U.S.
Facebook is also successful in Europe, where other social
networks such as Nasza Klasa in Poland and vKontakte in Russia and
Ukraine, are consistently the top sites in their respective countries.
Opera Mini users viewed more than 5.7 billion pages in November.
Since October, page views have gone up 12.1%. Since November 2007, this
number is up 303%.
Data transfers also increased in line with page views. In
November, Opera Mini users generated more than 82.9 million MB of data
for operators worldwide. Since October, the data consumed went up by
12.5%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed 90% on average. If this data
were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 829 million
MB of data in November. Since November 2007, data traffic is up 463%.

Report Findings
The final State of the Mobile Web report for 2008 examines two of the
most developed regions in the world: Europe and North America. For many
countries in these regions, high mobile phone penetration coexists
alongside high PC penetration and high broadband penetration. Consumers
have the option of choosing either the mobile Web or the fixed Web, or
both.

Whereas our reports on Africa and Southeast Asia often showed
quadruple-digit page view growth in 2008, the numbers in more developed
countries show moderate, yet still impressive gains. Page views in
Opera Mini grew 200% since January 2008 in the United States. In
Sweden, which enjoys some of the highest broadband penetration in the
world, page views grew 58% in 2008. Sweden was one of the first
countries to have access to Opera Mini in 2005, yet still exhibits
exceptional growth.

In countries where broadband is widely available and PC penetration
high, there is still high demand for the mobile Web. Yet in countries
without easy access to broadband or PCs, the mobile Web is essential
and the page-view metrics from previous State of the Mobile Web reports
confirm this trend.

"The numbers are clear: the mobile Web is growing around the world,
even in countries where broadband penetration is high. In fact, it is
growing because consumers are used to having ubiquitous access to the
Web and expect to have it wherever they are," said Jon von Tetzchner,
CEO, Opera. "But the real promise of the mobile Web is in connecting
those who do not have broadband readily available. The next billion
people will use the Web first on their mobile phones. Once that happens
we will finally both unleash the vast potential and realize the
greatest benefit of the mobile Web."

The full report is available from http://www.opera.com/smw/.

About Opera Software ASA

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 performance, standards compliance and
small size, 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
http://www.opera.com/.

Opera's State of Mobile Web Gives Nod to BlackBerry Bold

Top sites ranked by unique users

Top handsets for November 2008