Media News South Africa

SA women lead mobile gender push

Opera's State of the Mobile Web report, which provides information monthly on the top global trends affecting the mobile web, has released the first results from a survey of more than 300 000 Opera Mini users, as well as a snapshot of mobile web trends in Southeast Asia.

According to the report, released yesterday 26 August 2010 in Oslo, in just two years the percentage of women on the mobile Web has risen 575%. South Africa leads the world's push for gender equality on the mobile Web, with women accounting for nearly 44% of mobile web users.

Starting in late July and running over the course of several weeks, it conducted a survey to learn more about Opera Mini users around the world. In addition to collecting user demographic data for this report, the survey sought to quantify various aspects of their online/mobile lifestyle.

Highlights:

  • South Africa has the most female users (43.5%)
  • US (35.6%)
  • Russia (32.4%)
  • UK (31.5%)
  • India has the fewest female users (4.0%)
  • Nigeria (5.4%)
  • China (11.6%)
  • Vietnam (17.9%)

Significant changes

Compared to the last time it surveyed its users, some significant changes were observed.

  • Increase in female users
  • o Russia - from 12.5% to 32.4%
    o China - from 5.5% to 11.6%
    o United States - from 19.4% to 35.6%
    o South Africa - from 24.7% to 43.5%
    o Ukraine - from 8.5% to 24.2%
    o UK - from 16.6% to 31.5%
  • Age stats
  • o Ukraine and Vietnam have the most users under 18 (34.8% and 23.7%, respectively)
    o Across the board 18-27 is still the biggest age group of users
    o Under-18 user base in the US and UK grew (proportionally) at the expense of the 18-27 group
    o US and UK have many users who are 38 and older (26% and 21%, respectively)
  • Lifestyle - users were asked "Do you have online friends you've never met in real life?"
  • o On the high end, (more 'yes' responses): Nigeria (87.3%), Indonesia (83.7%), and Ukraine (83.1%)

    o On the low end, (fewer 'yes' responses): United Kingdom (64.6%), United States (65.6%)

Global trends

  • July 2010, it had over 62.3 million users, a 4.8% increase from June 2010
  • Since July 2009, the number of unique users has increased 114.3%
  • 62.3 million active users viewed over 29.6 billion pages in July 2010
  • Since June, page views have gone up 8.5%. Since July 2009, page views have increased 146.3%.
  • July 2010, users generated over 445 million MB of data for operators worldwide
  • Since June, the data consumed went up by 6.9%.
  • Since July 2009, data traffic is up 138.1%.

Top 10 users

Kenya joins the list of top 10 countries for Opera Mini users, replacing Nigeria. Top ten is now Indonesia, Russia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, the United States, Vietnam, the United Kingdom and Kenya.

Go to www.opera.com/smw/ for the full report.

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