Opera Mini usage jumped 11% in October to over 40 million users

More than 39.6 million people used Opera Mini last month, a huge 155% increase from the prior year. Page-views soared 238% over the same time while data transfers rose 233%. According to the software company's 'State of Mobile Browsing' report, this resulted in users saving the equivalent of $9.4 billion USD over the 12 month period. You can figure out how much you saved by choosing Opera as your browser by clicking on the source link which will send you to a calculator where you can compute how much money Opera saved you and also take you to the full report.

Some interesting tidbits of info are in the report. For example, the top ten countries using Opera are Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Poland and Vietnam. As of June, the top ten sites visited by Opera users in the U.S. are Google, My Space, Facebook, Wikipedia, CNN, YouTube, Yahoo, my.Opera, New York Times and Accuweather. The top ten handsets using Opera in the U.S. (remember, this is as of June) are the BlackBerry 8330 (Curve), Samsung SPH-M800 (Instinct), BlackBerry 9000 (Bold), LG CU920 (Vu), BlackBerry 8310 (Curve), Samsung SPH-M810 (Instinct S30), BlackBerry 9530 (Storm), BlackBerry 8130 (Pearl), BlackBerry 8320 (Curve) and the BlackBerry 8900 (Curve2)

Jon von Tetzchner, the company's CEO, explains how using Opera can save users money by saying, "Because Opera Mini compresses data by up to 90%, people everywhere can reduce the amount they pay each month for mobile data. By making the Web accessible and affordable on mobile devices, we can usher in a communications revolution on an unprecedented scale. Opera Mini is helping to spur this change — potentially affecting the lives of billions — not just by making mobile browsing possible, but by making it affordable, as well." Opera Mini is the browser that cellphone users can download on to their handset. Opera Mobile is the browser that many manufacturers have made original equipment on a handset either as the default browser or as an improvement on the browser that comes with the phone's OS (think HTC Windows Mobile devices). Over 120 million mobile phones have been shipped with Opera Mobile so far.

source: Opera