• Friday, March 29, 2024
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120 million internet users in Africa use Opera browsers in Q1 2019- State of Mobile Web

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A new report on State of Mobile Web 2019 has revealed the applications of the world’s major browser developers Opera, was used by nearly 120 million internet users in Africa and by more than 350 million people globally.

According to the report which gives a detailed look at the digital landscape of the African region, Opera browsers and standalone news app were used by nearly 120 million internet users in Africa and by more than 350 million people globally which illustrates Opera’s growing leadership in the digital transformation of Africa.

“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,” Jørgen Arnesen, Head of Marketing and Distribution at Operas said.

The State of Mobile Web 2019 report showed 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 every day, an activity they prefer over the use of other applications.

“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,” Arnesen said.

The State of Mobile Web 2019 also indicated that on average, Africans using Opera spend more than 30 minutes browsing on a daily basis.

Moreover, the report showed that 31percent 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.

According to the report, Opera compared the average prices of mobile data in twenty countries in Africa which revealed that the data compression mode in Opera Mini saved users nearly $100 million of data cost in 2018.

In the analysis, Opera also compared the cost of data in some African countries with the cost of mobile data in India and Germany which showed South Africans pay six times more per gigabyte of mobile data than Indians.

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.

The report indicates that people spend 50percent of in-app time in Opera News watching videos on Instaclips, the recently added video feature on the news app as Video content is also becoming more popular among people who use the Opera News app.

In Q1-2019, Instaclips registered a total of 122 thousand videos uploaded in different languages such as English, Portuguese, French, Arabic and Swahili.

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.

The full version of the State of Mobile Web 2019 report is available to read https:/­/blogs.opera.com/new­s/wp-content/uploads­/sites/2/2019/06/SMW­_2019.pdfdownload

 

DIPO OLADEHINDE