Google Dominates US Mobile Web Search

Google enjoys a commanding lead in mobile web search in the United States, according to the latest ‘State of the Mobile Web’ report from browser company Opera Software. Accounting for more than 9% of all page views on the mobile web in the US, Google easily outpaces rivals Yahoo! and Bing, with 4.3% and 0.03% of all page views, respectively.
Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report, published monthly, provides information on the top global trends affecting the mobile web. In addition to search trends on the mobile web, this month’s report also highlights global statistics and profiles the Middle East.
Headline findings from the report include:

• In January 2010, 50 million people used Opera Mini, a 7.4% increase from December 2009 and up 149% compared to January 2009.
• Opera Mini users viewed more than 23.3 billion pages in January 2010. Since December, page views have gone up 12.7%. Since January 2009, page views have increased 208%.
• In January 2010, Opera Mini users generated over 337 million MB of data for operators worldwide, a 7% increased on December, and 176% up on January 2009. (Data in Opera Mini is compressed by up to 90%).
• The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage in January 2010 were: Russia, Indonesia, India, Ukraine, China, South Africa, the US, Nigeria, Vietnam and the UK.
• Opera Mini users in Vietnam and India are the biggest users of search portals. In Vietnam, 30.9%% of page views are from search portals, and users viewed an average of 63.6 search-portal pages per month. In India, 22.1%% of page views are from search portals, and users viewed an average of 75.8 search-portal pages per month.
• In the Middle East, the top 10 countries using Opera Mini are Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Lebanon, Iraq and Kuwait.
•  Among mobile web users in the Middle East, Google is at the top of the rankings in nine out of the top 10 countries. In Israel, Google is No. 2 (behind Facebook).
• Facebook is also very popular, taking the No.2 spot in six of the top 10 countries, the No.3 spot in three of the top 10 countries, and the No.1 spot in one of the top 10 countries.

"Search and social networking are the twin pillars of mobile web use worldwide," says Opera Co-founder, Jon von Tetzchner. "While Google performs well globally, we also see several local search engines, such as Yandex in Russia and Ukraine, and Baidu in China, have impressive results in their key markets."
You can access the Opera State of the Mobile report archive here. http://www.opera.com/smw/archive/