According to Opera, Facebook is the most popular site on the mobile web in Africa. In addition, a report from the company shows a 5% jump in global mobile Internet users.

Opera Mini has garnered more than 41.7 million users worldwide showing a 5.3 percent jump compared to the previous month, according to the report. The number of page views in November went up 9.5% and data consumption increased 8.3% compared to October.

In Africa, Facebook has taken a strong lead and ranks as the most popular site in six out of the top 10 countries, Opera says. The company highlights the following global trends:

- In November 2009, more than 41.7 million people used Opera Mini, a 5.3% increase from October 2009 and more than 154% compared to November 2008.

- Those 41.7 million people viewed more than 18.8 billion pages in November 2009. Since October, page-views have gone up 9.5%. Since November 2008, page-views have increased 231%.

- Opera Mini users generated over 285 million megabytes of data for operators worldwide in November 2009. Since October, the data consumed went up by 8.3%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed over 2.6 petabytes of data in November. Since November 2008, data traffic is up 213%.

- The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage (in order): Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Vietnam and Poland.

Opera also highlights the following trends for Africa:

- The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in Africa are (in order): South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Tanzania and Namibia.

- Some numbers regarding Africa: From November 2008 to November 2009, page-views in the top 10 countries increased by 374%, unique users increased by 177%, and data transferred increased by 183%.

- Since our last spotlight on Africa, Kenya jumped from #4 to #3, Ghana jumped from #11 to #5 and Ivory Coast jumped from #8 to #7.

- Growth rates in Africa: Ghana and Kenya lead the top 10 African countries in terms of page-view growth. Ghana and Ivory Coast lead the top 10 African countries in growth of unique users. Kenya leads the top 10 African countries in page-views, with each user browsing 525 pages on average each month.

- Facebook has taken the lead in Africa; it is the most popular site visited by Opera Mini users in six out of 10 countries and the #2 site in the three countries where it isn’t #1. Google is also very popular, and is ahead of Facebook in a few of the top 10 African countries. Yahoo and Wikipedia are also ubiquitous in the top 10 lists of the various African countries.

- Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets are extremely popular in Africa, but Samsung is a significant exception, boasting the most popular phone used by Opera Mini users in South Africa, Zambia and Namibia.

"It is heartening to know that Opera Mini continues to grow consistently in all regions and categories — specially in continents like Africa where mobile phones are more likely the only way for people to access the Web," said Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. "At Opera, we are striving to bring the most innovative and affordable way for people to access the mobile Web and expect 2010 will prove just as successful for us as the case has been in previous years."

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