Opera Browser Now Used By 100 Million Mobile Users

The growth of web surfing from a mobile phone has been starkly illustrated after Opera Software announced that there are more than 100 million users of its mobile browser technology.

In a press release, Opera said more than 100 million people use an Opera browser each month on their mobile phones. According to Opera’s latest State of the Mobile Web report, released 9 February, 90.4 million people use Opera Mini every month and about 15 million people use Opera Mobile each month.

In all, 105 million people use Opera on their phones.

Mobile Internet

“Experts all have some date when they claim the mobile web will overtake the PC web – we’re watching that transition now,” said Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder of Opera Software, in a statement. “But, rather than think of numbers, we think of people. 100 million is the beginning of a new era for the web.”

“In the next few years, hundreds of millions of people will take their first baby steps online. They will make their voices heard across their country and around the world,” said von Tetzchner. “They will not only discover new ideas, but contribute their own. We defend those voices and celebrate those ideas. It is why we believe access to the web is a universal right, and no device is more universal than a mobile phone.”

At the upcoming Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Opera will highlight new versions of the Opera Mini browser on Android, iPhone, Java 2 Platform Micro Edition (J2ME), BlackBerry, Symbian and the iPad. And the latest versions of the Opera Mobile browser for Android and Symbian will make their debut.

Battery Lite

“Our developers have been hard at work building the mobile browser of the future – for both consumers and mobile operators,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera, in a statement. “We want our browser to impact lives in a meaningful way. It’s one reason we use mostly renewable resources to power Opera Mini’s servers. It’s why we make it light, so you don’t have to recharge your battery every few hours. It’s why Opera Mini and Opera Mobile can help operators reduce the bandwidth that clogs their networks. A browser may never change the world, but we’ll never stop trying to.”

For a more detailed overview of Opera’s mobile momentum, the company’s State of the Mobile Web report is available here.