Opera is reporting that usage of its Opera Mini mobile browser has jumped 11% in just a month, around the world. In addition, they say data transfers have gained 16%.

About 40 million people used Opera Mini in October, according to the company. That's an 11.3% increase from September 2009 and more than 155% compared to October 2008. page-views and data transfers increased at an even more impressive rate. Opera says that because of this, consumers can save 9.4 billion USD per year just by using Opera Mini. If you want to know how this translates to you personally, Opera has a cost calculator in its new State of the Mobile Web report.

Because Opera Mini compresses data by up to 90%, people everywhere can reduce the amount they pay each month for mobile data," says Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. "By making the Web accessible and affordable on mobile devices, we can usher in a communications revolution on an unprecedented scale. Opera Mini is helping to spur this change — potentially affecting the lives of billions — not just by making mobile browsing possible, but by making it affordable, as well."

The 39.6 million people using Opera Mini in October viewed 17.2 billion pages.

From September, page-views increased 14.8%. From October 2008, they increased 238%. A few more interesting stats from Opera's report include: 

- Opera Mini users generated more than 263 million MB of data for operators worldwide in October 2009.

- Since September, the data consumed went up by 16%.

- Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%, meaning Opera Mini servers processed up to 2.5 petabytes of data this month.

- Since October 2008, data traffic increased 233%.

The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage are (in order) are Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Poland and Vietnam. This is exactly the same as it was in September.

As mobile web use is clearly growing rapidly, it is important that your site has not only a good, usable mobile presence, but it is also essential that your site be visible in mobile search. We recently looked at some advice from Google on making sure you're indexed in Google's mobile web search, and how to handle the two different versions of you site (mobile/desktop).

by Chris Crum - webpronews.com