Most of Opera Mini users in India still use Java-based phones

58% Indians using Opera Mini mobile browsers use low end Java-based devices, while 30% use Android and 12% using other operating systems, the company revealed via a Tweet on Internet usage metrics of Indians. The company has not disclosed the actual number of people who use Opera Mini browser on Java-based handsets, but it revealed on its website that it has 270 million mobile users globally as of December, 2013. The company told Medianama that India is still the leading country in terms of Opera Mini usage.

This could be bad news for Opera which until recently was allegedly the dominant mobile browser used by Indians thanks to various pre-loading and telco deals inked by the company over the years, apart from its ability to compress webpages significantly to reduce data usage. Opera has been facing significant pressure from other players like UC Web’s UC Browser in India, as it provides more advanced features to users. UC Browser had claimed that it overtook Opera Mini as India’s top mobile browser and according to latest data from web analytics firm StatCounter UC Browser has a market share of 34.18% and Opera has a market share of 25.27%.

Opera Mini might not be as relevant as it used to be with people shifting to faster 3G and 4G connections, where time taken to load a page is no longer an issue. So getting smartphone users to adopt its browser might be a challenge for the company.

Most popular websites: Google is most visited website by people using Java-based phones, but it is only third as far as data usage is concerned. Facebook meanwhile tops the list as far as actual data usage is concerned, but is only second when it comes to number of visits. YouTube is the third most visited website and comes second in the list when it comes to data usage.

Other websites that made it to the most visited list includes, Blogger, Wikipedia, in.com, wordpress.com, Quikr, Indiatimes, OLX, Zedge, Twitter and NDTV. It is worth noting that this list is very different from the list made by Opera of most popular websites in terms of usage by mobile users in India overall last year. That list included websites of OLX, Indiatimes.com, in.com, Cricbuzz, Quikr, NDTV, Wap.in, intoday.in, Flipkart and Rediff.

Nokia still rules low-end: 53% of Opera users in India using Java-based phones preferred devices made by Nokia, while 28% preferred Samsung and Micromax came in third with 14% usage base. Nokia X2-601 was the most popular device in this category among those using Opera browser, followed by Nokia 2690 and Nokia 2700c-2. The only non-Nokia device that made it to the list was Samsung Champ (GT-C3262). This is very much like the usage patterns by Opera mobile users in India back in 2012.

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