Opera Reports Massive Growth For Mobile Web Usage, Particularly In Asia And Africa

Browser maker Opera Software has released its latest ‘State of the Mobile Web’ report this morning, which is based on the usage of its Opera Mini browser for mobile phones. They do this every month, and the conclusion is always the same: mobile web usage around the world keeps on growing and growing.

The Norwegian company says Opera Mini has garnered more than 41.7 million users, showing a 5.3 percent jump compared to the previous month and more than 154% compared to November 2008. In addition, Opera claims the number of page-views in November 2009 went up 9.5% and data consumption increased 8.3% compared to the previous month.

The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage (in order): Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Vietnam and Poland.

The company in this month’s report pointed a looking glass at the state of the mobile web in Africa, where Facebook has apparently taken a strong lead and ranks as the most popular site in six out of the top 10 countries. This is in line with yesterday’s report of Facebook’s global rise. Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia are other popular websites in Africa.

When it comes to handsets, it seems Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets are the most popular in the continent, but Samsung boasts the most popular phone used by Opera Mini users in South Africa, Zambia and Namibia.

From November 2008 to November 2009, page views in the top 10 African countries increased by a whopping 374%, unique users by 177%, and data transferred by 183% according to Opera’s report. Ghana, Kenya and Ivory Coast lead the top 10 African countries in terms of growth.

As you can tell from the graph below, mobile web usage Southeast Asia is growing even faster.