Whereas Opera’s 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 US. 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.
Jon von Tetzchner, CEO at Opera, commented: "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. 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."
In its final State of the Mobile Web report in 2008, Opera reviewed the top sites and top phones for Opera Mini in both Europe and North America. Russia and Ukraine lead Europe, followed closely by the United Kingdom.
Released by AT&T in early November in the US, the BlackBerry Bold made an immediate impact and is high on the list of top handsets preferred by Opera Mini users in the US.
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%.