The number of mobile phone users who use Opera to browse the Web has topped 200 million per month for the first time, the Norwegian company revealed in a report on Monday, July 30. The number of users per month is up 47 percent compared to last year.
Opera made the announcement as it launched its latest State of the Mobile Web report, that monitors usage of its products across 53 countries, and revealed that it passed the landmark in June 2012. The 200 million user figure represents the combined number of active users of Opera's mobile Internet browsers. Of that total figure, the Opera Mini browser, designed for feature phones, accounts for roughly 92 percent of users, while Opera Mobile, designed for smartphones, makes up the remaining 17 million.
In addition, to the significant increase in the number of users, Opera also revealed that page views increased 55 percent annually as users browsed more than 115 billion pages from their mobile devices in June. The report also focuses on Opera's growth in one emerging market in particular - Africa. According to Opera, a number of signs indicate that mobile Web usage is growing in usage and sophistication as well. Also, Facebook is, by far, the most popular site in the region. As much of the mobile use in Africa is based on feature phones, Opera's Mini browser took the lead with 36 countries on the continent more than doubling their use of the browser.
"Two hundred million people use Opera Mini and Opera Mobile to connect to the world around them. For many of them, a browser is more than a tool to 'browse the web,'" said Opera CEO Lars Boilesen in the press release. "Sometimes it's a school when you can afford none, sometimes it's the only line to an outside world shut off by an oppressive regime. Providing a service that reliably and cheaply delivers critical information to just about everyone with a phone is the reason Opera makes browsers."
Opera also provided a clickable map, serving as a concise guide to more than 1,000 data points, including top sites, handsets, mobile penetration, and other metrics across a total of 53 countries. You can find the map and full report on Opera's latest State of the Mobile Web release.
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