News: Nigeria overtakes SA as Africa's biggest user of Opera Mini

Opera Software has released its latest State of the Mobile Web report, revealing that Nigeria has unseated SA as the top African country in terms of Opera Mini browser users.

Nigeria overtook both China and South Africa to finish fifth on the global list for unique monthly users of Opera Mini. At the moment only Russia, Indonesia, India and Ukraine are ahead of Nigeria in terms of unique monthly users.

SA, currently ranked seventh, has until now managed to maintain its place on the summit of the list in Africa, as well as consistently holding onto the sixth place globally for the highest number of Opera Mini users. It has done so in all but five months since the first State of the Mobile Web report was launched back in April 2008.

Nigeria made its debut in the top 10 list in March 2009, but unlike SA hasn’t been so consistent, on occasion even falling off the list entirely.

In the year to March 2011, Nigeria experienced a 143.5% growth in the number of unique Opera Mini users, compared to 67% growth in South Africa. During the same period, South Africa showed higher growth in the number of monthly page views and data transfer (99.5% and 95.5% respectively) compared to Nigeria (87.7% and 80.0% respectively).

“Nigeria is a country to watch,” said Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder, Opera Software. “It will be very interesting to see whether its stint as the top African country for Opera Mini turns out to be [a] one-off result or the beginning of a long-term trend for mobile browsing in Africa.”

Opera Mini is the most popular mobile browser in South Africa as well as Nigeria, with StatCounter’s March results showing Opera to have 67.5% share of the local mobile browser market and a massive 87.7% share in Nigeria. Opera Software has also snapped up 71.8% market share for mobile browsing on the African continent.

The Norwegian company recently released its Opera 11.10 PC browser, and also revealed that the Opera Mini and Opera Mobile user mark, has surpassed the significant 100 million milestone globally.

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Nigeria overtakes SA as Africa's biggest user of Opera Mini

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