Opera Surpasses 169 Million Users

Sites include Opera.com . Published on May 21st, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

If any browser has carved out a niche for itself in the mobile browsing space, its Opera. Its mobile offering dubbed ‘Opera Mini’ now has over 169 million users. This take up among mobile users is a stark contrast to Opera presence on the desktop market where it can barely keep pace with the likes of Google Chrome and Firefox.

The figure comes out of a comprehensive study that was conducted by Opera between 2010 and 2011. Aside from the usage numbers, there was some other qualitative data which made for interesting reading. Developing countries for instance are very big on mobile browsing and Opera found that when its mobile browser was used it invariable was used for the mobile web. Around 53% of Opera users accounted for this fact.

Opera vast take-up of its mobile browser is largest in developing countries were wired internet is expensive and thus inaccessible to most people. Mobile phone ownership is big in countries like Egypt and Bangladesh where Opera counts many of its users for the mobile browser.

Opera’s success with the mobile version of its browser is down to its speed. In fact, most people who don’t use Opera on their desktop don’t because they don’t know how fast it is. If Opera can get these people using its browser in a traditional sense, there is no telling what it might be able to achieve.

Do you use either of Opera’s browsers for surfing the web? Share what you like about Opera below.