Opera ends 2008 with 17.8 million mobile users

Mobile browser company Opera has published a review of the mobile web for 2008. Its State of the Mobile Web report shows continuing growth, with 17.8 million people using Opera Mini at the end of the year. In the UK, the top 5 sites visited by Opera mobile users were google.com, facebook.com, yahoo.com, bbc.co.uk and orkut.com. The top UK social network was facebook.com with 536% growth in 2008. MySpace, incidentally, showed a 15% drop. [Press release]

Men outnumber women when mobile browsing

Men outnumber women on the mobile web almost nine to one according to the latest report from browser company Opera. It says 88.1 percent of people using the mobile internet on its Opera Mini browser are male, and most are aged 18 to 27. [Press release]

Almost 40% of mobile web traffic is to social networks

Mobile browser company Opera has released a report about the state of the mobile web, basing its findings on statistics from more than 44 million Opera-equipped devices. It says almost 40% of mobile web traffic worldwide is to social networks, with some countries hitting 60%. Over three-quarters of all users are visiting standard web sites, with WAP and .mobi sites accounting for 23% of mobile web traffic. The UK's top ten web sites viewed from a mobile device were:

• www.facebook.com
• www.google.co.uk
• www.live.com
• www.bebo.com
• www.mocospace.com
• news.bbc.co.uk
• uk.yahoo.com
• www.itsmy.com
• www.faceparty.com
• www.ebay.co.uk

Opera mobile browsers now using Google

Opera's mobile web browsers - Opera Mini and Opera Mobile - are are now using Google as their default search engine, replacing a year-old deal with Yahoo! - which, in turn, had replaced an earlier deal with Google. This new agreement, which takes effect from 1st March, will apply worldwide except for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. [Press release]