Opera Software has released its latest "State of the Mobile Web" report which shows that most 18-27 year-old (Generation Y) Opera Mini users, utilise their mobile phones to browse the World Wide Web, more often than they employ their PCs or notebooks to do so. These findings came to light in a 300 000+ person survey that the company conducted.

 

In South Africa, Nigeria as well as Indonesia, over 90% of this age grouping (also the largest group of Opera Mini users) stated that they use their mobile phones more than desktop or notebooks to access the Internet. This is in contrast to countries such as Poland, Germany, the US and Brazil, where the highest percentage of respondents are using their computers as the primary means of accessing the Internet.

 

Other findings include the fact that almost 90% of respondents in the States (aged 18-27) have used their phones to share pictures, with Vietnam having the lowest user percentage (67%) who shares pictures via their handset of the countries surveyed. American users are also least likely to have asked someone out on a date via SMS (44%), whilst respondents in China (84%), Germany (84%) and Vietnam (83%) are the most likely to have used SMS’s for this purpose. Local Opera Mini users (49%) together with American users (44%) are somewhat to very uncomfortable sharing their personal info online.

 

“We have often said that the next generation will grow up knowing the Web mostly through their mobile phones,” said Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder, Opera. “We see this trend already emerging in different regions around the world. The mobile Web will bring a profound change in how we connect with one another. I think the results from this survey already show that change taking place.”

 

Regarding statistics for October 2010, Opera Mini had more than 76.3 million users, which is a 7.1% increase from September 2010 and over 92% increase compared to October 2009. These Opera Mini users viewed over 41.6 billion pages during last month, which is a 142% year-on-year increase.

 

The company also released the final version of Opera Mobile 10.1 for Symbian running mobile phones yesterday.