Social networking the pull for mobile surfers

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 20 May 2008 at 15:36

Social networking sites are the number one destination for users of Opera Mini, according to a report from Opera.

In its "State of the Mobile Web" report, Opera claims that in March alone 11.9 million people globally used Opera Mini to browse 2.4 billion pages, 40% of which were social networking sites, with Facebook coming out on top in the UK.

This was followed by Google and Microsoft's Live service, with Bebo the fourth most popular site for UK surfers.

The report goes on to claim that those 11.9 million users generated more than 33 million megabytes of data traffic, explaining rather succinctly why UK operators are paying ever more attention to mobile data packages.

Unsurprisingly, the report claims Opera is finding good traction among users, with over 44 million people apparently giving Opera Mini a whirl since launch.

The report also paints a grim picture for WAP sites, which it claims accounted for only 23% of all surfing in March - with the remaining 77% belonging to full HTML websites.

You can read our roundup of current mobile broadband services in the next issue of PC Pro, available 19 June.