Here’s yet another study reporting about mobile phones and data usage through portable communication devices. According to The State of the Mobile Web report prepared by Opera Software, more and more mobile phone users have been searching for information on the disastrous Tsunami and Earthquake which occurred in Japan early last month.
It has been stated that following the aforesaid events, the number of visitors to a website dubbed TEPCO managed by Fukushima power plant’s owners and operators rose massively. This sudden surge is said to have propelled it into the list of top ten most visited websites in the country during the nuclear emergency.
“It could be argued that the need for information is only surpassed by the need for food, security and shelter, especially in the times of crisis,” explained Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software. “Our logs showed a sharp increase in Opera Mini usage as information seekers in Japan sought out both news sources and certain corporate sites in the days following the earthquake.”
While Japanese mobile phone owners were busy finding data, the Opera Mini browser has reportedly been used by over 102.4 million people worldwide. With a 14.1 percent rise from February 2011, the survey has registered an 85.4 percent increase in the number of unique users on a year over year basis. In Europe, Wikipedia, Google, YouTube and Facebook continued to maintain dominance as the top websites.
On the Indian coast, Micromax has penetrated into the roster of the top 10 handsets amongst Opera Mini users. Revelations state that Nokia has sustained its position with 9 out 10 devices in the aforementioned list coming from the Finnish giant’s lab. These include the Nokia 2690, 5130 XpressMusic, 2700c, 2730c and X2.
As far as the mobile web surfing habits of Indian users are concerned, Google acquired the top spot followed by Facebook and YouTube on the second and third places, respectively. The fourth and the fifth seats were correspondingly secured by Orkut and Getjar. In addition, there has been a page-view and data transfer growth respectively of about 308.2 percent and 254.1 percent from March 2010.
This surge in informational search on the web could offer innovative ideas to developers and manufacturers for delivering efficient content and applications. The State of the Mobile Web report has been developed by Opera Software.