Opera, one of the world’s major browser
developers, and a leader in the field of content platforms, presented today the
report State of Mobile Web
2019, which gives
a detailed look at the digital landscape of the African region.
The report reveals that in Q1-2019, the Opera
browsers and standalone news app were used by nearly 120 million internet users
in Africa and by more than 350 million people globally. Moreover, the State of
Mobile Web 2019 shows that Opera experienced a user growth of more than twenty
five percent over a one-year period.
“We are
thrilled to see that our mobile browsers and news app has grown by 25 million
monthly users in the last year in Africa'' said Jørgen Arnesen, Head of Marketing
and Distribution at Opera. “The new Opera
News app has led this positive growth, as well as the introduction of new
features to our mobile browsers such as a built-in VPN and crypto wallet. The
successful partnerships Opera has with major smartphone manufacturers in Africa
have also contributed to the massive growth”.
In the 2019 edition of the State of the Mobile Web
report also looked into the use of the Opera Mini browser and the Opera browser
for Android.
The mobile browser used more than other apps
The State of Mobile Web 2019 report shows that
mobile browsing is one of the most popular activities among African internet
users. For example, in South Africa, nine out of ten people use their mobile
browser everyday, an activity they prefer over the use of other applications.
State of Mobile Web 2019 also revealed that on
average, Africans using Opera spend more than 30 minutes browsing on a daily
basis.
Moreover, the
report showed that 31% of browsing sessions of people who use Opera Mini in
Africa in Q1-2019, are to social media platform domains like Facebook, YouTube
and Instagram, followed by search engine websites like Google and entertainment
and sport websites.
100 million dollars saved on mobile data
In the State of Mobile Web 2019, Opera gives
detailed insight into the use of the data savings feature in the Opera Mini
browser. In the report, Opera compared the average prices of mobile data in
twenty countries in Africa. The results revealed that the data compression mode
in Opera Mini saved users nearly 100 million USD of data cost in 2018.
In this analysis, Opera also compared the cost of
data in some African countries with the cost of mobile data in India and
Germany. The outcome of this analysis showed that South Africans pay six times
more per gigabyte of mobile data than Indians.
Rapid changing news and video consumption landscape
The report takes a look at the trends of news and
video consumption across Africa. This includes analyzing the usage of its
standalone Opera News app, which grew from launch to over 20 million users in a
period of one year. Categories like breaking news, local news, and
entertainment were the favourites of the users in the first quarter of the
year.
Video content is also becoming more popular among
people who use the Opera News app. The report indicates that people spend 50%
of in-app time in Opera News watching videos on Instaclips, the recently added video feature on the news app.
The usage of
Instaclips keeps growing since its test launch in December 2018. In Q1-2019,
Instaclips registered a total of 122 thousand videos uploaded in different
languages such as English, Portoguese, French, Arabic and Swahilli.
Expanding beyond browsing to fuel the digital
transformation
Opera’s commitment to the African digital
transformation has already started. Beyond the development of its mobile
browsers and standalone news app, Opera has made major investments in the
African region expanding its services to other technology areas such as FinTech
and digital advertising. In 2018, Opera announced the launch of OKash, a
fintech solution for micro-lending that quickly got traction among mobile
internet users in Kenya. Today, OKash ranks among the most downloaded
micro-lending applications among Kenyans and its user base keeps on growing.
In May 2019, Opera announced the introduction of
Opera Ads, a new advertising platform that allows media agencies and publishers
to run more targeted marketing campaigns across the Opera platforms.
Available
online
The full version of the State of Mobile Web 2019
report is available to read online or for download by clicking here.
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