Mobile Browsing Bonanza: One billion Web pages viewed with Opera Miniâ„¢, Web search and community sites most popular

Mobile Browsing Bonanza: One billion Web pages viewed with Opera Miniâ„¢, Web search and community sites most popular

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.

“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, closely followed by the United States, 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.

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