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Yes, 80 million people are using the Opera browser. On top of that, Opera users managed to get 44.6 billion page views in the month of November alone, as mentioned in Opera’s State of the Mobile Web address.
Most of the time that isn’t a statistic can that can be acquired very easily, accurately or that quickly. How did Opera pull it off? It’s all in the unique way their browser does business, and the reason it’s so popular in the mobile world. Normally when a user requests a web page, the browser goes right to the site and brings back content. This content is usually made for desktop/laptop setups that are on much faster broadband connections. What Opera Mini does different is when a user requests a web page the browser heads to Opera’s servers first, those servers then go to the website to request content, it’s sent back to Opera’s servers, compressed about 90% on average and finally makes its way to the consumer’s device. And in the world of monthly caps, every MB counts.
Let me pilfer the key details IntoMobile pulled out of the report:
- In November 2010, Opera Mini had over 80.0 million users, a 4.9% increase from October 2010. Since November 2009, the number of unique users has increased 91.8%.
- Opera Mini users viewed over 44.6 billion pages in November 2010. Since October, page views have gone up 7.3%. Since November 2009, page views have increased 137.3%.
- In November 2010, Opera Mini users generated over 645 TB of data for operators worldwide. Since October, the data consumed went up by 10.0%. Since November 2009, data traffic is up 137.6%.
- In November 2010 the two most popular websites visited by Opera Mini users were Google and Facebook. In November 2009 it was Facebook and Google. Interesting to see them swapping places.
- The iPhone, which wasn’t even on the top 30 list of handsets using Opera Mini during November 2009, was the 5th most popular handset using the service in November 2010.
On a serious note, when did Dante become CEO of Opera? Is he even supposed to be here today?
[via Into Mobile]
Yes, I’m one of the opera user. It’s nice and full of features. Used to be google chrome but it has a lot of hang websites and force close issues so I switch to opera.
Lulz at Clerks referemce.
I love Opera, just not on Android.
I think you should also link to Opera Mobile which is by far superior to Mini.
What’s the difference between Opera Mobile Web Browser and Opera Mini Web browser?
I really enjoy mini as my current browser, its really fast
@oastnJam
One of them (i think the Mini version) compresses the requested page on Opera’s servers then sends it to the user (i.e. browser), the other version acts like any other browser where there’s no compression in the middle and all rendering takes place on the browser itself
Second the Opera Mobile comment. It’s better than Mini. Love Opera…hands down the best Android browser I’ve used (and I’ve tried many)…
@Maj,
That’s not exactly true. Opera Mobile is built for the more advanced smartphones. It has an option in its settings called “turbo” that when enabled, does the same thing mini does, e.g. go to the Opera server for compression…
Thanks for the info guys.
If web pages are going through Opera’s servers first, then you have to be wary that your private, sensitive data may not be so private and secure. Opera’s servers will have a cache of everything you’re browsing.
I’d rather use Sprint’s uncapped data service without Opera’s servers acting as middle man.
mini / mobile is a lot more different than that…
– I dunno about the android version, but on symbian, the mini has commands on ‘opera:config’ that number ten in total…
Opera mobiue has many, many more than this..
Mini fans do not care about this, all they want is small size and speed, and dont care for flash or movies…
interesting to see google beat facebook. Sign of things to come ?
I’ve been using Opera since it fit on a 3.5″ floppy disk. No joke. Version 2.something. I still use it everywhere but on my work PC because it doesn’t seem to like our Proxy. Firefox on the work PC, Opera everywhere else I go. I love it, although I’m not terribly pleased with the new mouse gesture engine on 11.