Opera surpasses Safari in global mobile browser market share

According to the latest figures from StatCounter, the Opera mobile browser has once again overtaken the iPhone's Safari browser as the most popular mobile browser internationally.

The two popular browsers have been battling for six months, but Safari has beaten out its rival for at least the last three months.

For the month of May however, Opera saw an unexpected spike in usage and jumped to 24.6 percent, while Safari fell to 17.6 percent.

In the United States, Safari remains dominant, followed by BlackBerry. Opera holds a tiny 3 percent market share.

"Opera began the year in number one slot but iPhone overtook it in February. May saw Opera regain the number one position," noted StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen. "It will be fascinating to watch how this battle plays out over the year."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 3 Jun 2009 23:54

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7 comments

SProdigy

Anyone with a brain not on an iPhone uses Opera. I totally loathe IE for Windows Mobile and that Skyfire browser crashes my phone every other page!

4.6.2009 19:55 #1

varnull

Opera is a nice browser .. not my cup of tea, but a nice piece of work never the less. Safari always reminds me of netscape.. ewwwwwww

Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work.
I would rather you hate me for who I am than love me for what I am not.
�It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.� - Bruce Schneier

4.6.2009 21:01 #2

blueboy09

While it definitely leaves ALOT to be desired it beats the hell out of IE on my Samsung phone anyday. Faster page loading and faster downloads are the pluses that i get on this WinMo phone, IMO. - BLUEBOY

5.6.2009 04:12 #3

Moomoo2

Opera >> Blackberry Browser

5.6.2009 08:53 #4

cart0181

So if you add the iTouch to the iPhone, you see that it is still destroying Opera. I am not a fan, it's just an observation I took from the graph.

What I want to see is some figures on how many Americans actually are using mobile internet at all? Certainly, AT&T (iPhone) has done wonders pushing this on the American public by "requiring" the data plan.

5.6.2009 23:16 #5

blueroad

Originally posted by cart0181: So if you add the iTouch to the iPhone, you see that it is still destroying Opera. I am not a fan, it's just an observation I took from the graph.

What I want to see is some figures on how many Americans actually are using mobile internet at all? Certainly, AT&T (iPhone) has done wonders pushing this on the American public by "requiring" the data plan.read the title dude
Quote:Opera surpasses Safari in global mobile browser market share

6.6.2009 07:25 #6

damncrap

I'm no expert but doesn't it make sense that Opera mobile will be used more than Safari mobile. It's not like the majority of the world owns iPhone's or iPod touches. I would think the majority of the world use windows mobile phones and everything else. Such phones can only install browsers like Opera which is as close as we will get to iPhone's Safari (excluding Palm Pre). To my knowledge you cannot Download and install Safari for other phones (I could be wrong I'm sure someone will correct me) so until then Opera will be used more. Unless the world suddenly becomes iPhone crazy LOL :-P

9.6.2009 01:50 #7

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