Mobile data consumption triples in two years

Mobile data consumption per month in Nepal has tripled in last two years, according to a study.

"In October 2011, Nepalis used to consume 1,360 million MB mobile data per month, whereas in two years – in October 2013 – they used 3,867 million MB of mobile data," according to State of the Mobile Web report of Opera that has also noted the Nepali mobile internet market is increasing rapidly, and not only on basic phones.

Opera Mini remains a popular web browser in Nepal, it claimed, adding that from October 2012 to October 2013, the number of Opera Mini users in Nepal increased by 98 per cent, nearly doubling over the year.

Some of the uptake in the Nepal market may be attributed to the fact that Opera Mini can run on older, less capable devices, but data also shows a rapid increase in smartphone usage in the country, it added. "The number of Opera Mini users on smartphones grew by 258 per cent from October 2012 to October 2013, while smartphone users accounted for 28 per cent of all Opera Mini users in October 2013."

The report also concluded that a whopping 20 per cent of all Opera Mini users in Nepal use Android currently, showing a significant uptake from October 2012 when only 10 per cent of Opera Mini users were on Android.

Likewise, an analysis of the user-generated data shows that Nepali Opera Mini users are not too different from users in the rest of the world. "They love social media and news, both international and local," according to the report. "In fact, nine out of 10 pages viewed by Nepali Opera Mini users are Facebook pages, signifying the popularity of social networking sites."

Similarly, the Opera Mini browser worldwide reached an all-time high in number of users during October. "In all, more than 245 million users surfed with the Opera Mini browser in October. Combined with the number of Opera for Android and Opera Mobile Classic users, the total number of users on Opera Software's mobile products reached 267 million users in October."

Opera Mini is also available on smartphone platforms, including Android and iOS, and is contributing to the reach of Opera Software products on smartphones, said the Oslo-based company. "In October 2013, more than 39 per cent of all Opera mobile browser users were on smartphone platforms."