INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology
Opera Mini and African
mobile web user
Opera Mini’s data compression feature has vastly helped African
mobile users get a better Internet browsing experience.
Opera Mini mobile browser was
launched in 2006 and many of the
telecom operators became and remain
partners. The advanced compression
offered in Opera enables companies
to offer a full Internet experience to
their subscribers for less. Ten years on,
Opera is celebrating 100m African
Opera users across the product
portfolio. However, many challenges
remain. This dichotomy is one that
Opera has been responding to over the
past decade.
Since 2014, average monthly data
usage by Opera Mini users in Africa
has increased by 171%. However,
due to Opera Mini’s advanced
compression technology, users have
saved the vast majority of their data.
By 2021 there is set to be 13-fold
increase in mobile data traffic in
Africa. This will be driven by the
increase in smartphone subscriptions
and demand for media-rich content
and data-intensive applications.
2016 marks the first year that more
smartphones are being shipped in
Africa than feature phones. Whilst
this is not necessarily reflective of the
handsets currently in use, it is a sign
of Africa’s Android future. Africa’s
smartphone penetration is expected
to reach 50% by 2020, from only
18% in 2015.
According to the IDC, 89% of all
smartphones shipped in Africa
during the first quarter of 2015 were
powered by Android and 45.1% of
those were priced below $100. Opera
Mini’s Android user-base in Africa
grew 2,284% between 2013 and
2016, a far steeper growth curve than
witnessed for African Android growth
overall, estimated to be between
48
INTELLIGENTCIO
75% and 100%. The reason for this
dramatic growth is in part due to
Opera’s partnerships with handset
manufacturers such as Tecno and
Samsung, but can also be attributed
to a refocus by Opera on the Android
platform as the key to African
connectivity, demonstrated by Opera
Mini’s product refresh with a native
Android look-and-feel.
Overall, 42% of South Africans watch
video content on their mobile devices
more than the global average of
30% and 57% of Nigerians want
to watch TV and video content on
demand. Visits to streaming video
websites on Opera Mini in Africa have
increased 36% since 2012. Users
from Tanzania are most likely to visit
websites such as YouTube followed by
South Africa and Ghana. South Africa
leads in mobile application usage
with around a third of the population
using mobile applications.
This compares to 31% in Ghana,
28% in Nigeria, 19% in Kenya and
18% in Uganda. Ghana is Opera
Mini’s most mature Android market
with 73% of users on Android. It is
also the only sub-Saharan market
where iOS features in the top ten
platforms for Opera Mini users. Opera
Mini consistently ranks in Africa’s
top 10 free applications, overall, on
Google Play; and comes in at around
number 3 in the Communications
category after Facebook Messenger
and Whatsapp.
It is often said that content is king
and this is no more, true than it
is in Africa. Opera Mini users are
accessing local news as much as
300% more than in 2014. Opera
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