8pm to midnight are the days prime mobile browsing hours for users around the world, according to Opera Software’s latest State of the Mobile Web report. Regardless of differences in economy, culture or location, those four evening hours account for a disproportionate amount of mobile data consumption.
Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report, published monthly, provides information on the top global trends affecting the mobile web. In addition to a review of traffic patterns throughout the day, the latest report highlights mobile browsing trends in Latin America and also celebrates a new top country for Opera Mini usage, Indonesia, which surpassed longtime rival Russia to claim the number-one spot.
Key findings of the report include:
- In May 2010, Opera Mini had over 61.4m users, a 4.2 per cent increase from April 2010. Since May 2009, the number of unique users has increased by 142 per cent
- Opera Mini users viewed over 28.3bn pages in May 2010. Since April, page views have gone up 7.7 per cent. Since May 2009, page views have increased 193.8 per cent
- Indonesia passed Russia to claim the top spot for Opera Mini usage. The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage in May 2010 were: Indonesia, Russia, India, China, Nigeria, Ukraine, S. Africa, the US, Vietnam and the UK
- In all of the top 10 countries, the highest level of Opera Mini use is at the tail end of the day, from 8pm to midnight. That said, users in the UK are just as likely to browse on their phones between 8am and noon
- There is little difference in data consumption between weekdays and weekends
- In general, evening browsing (between 4pm and midnight) is more common than daytime browsing (between 8am and 4pm), except in China and the UK where daytime/evening usage is about even
Latin America trends: 
- The top 10 countries using Opera Mini in Latin America are Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Honduras
- From May 2009 to May 2010, page views in the top 10 countries in Latin America increased by 214 per cent. Unique users increased by 195 per cent, and the amount of data transferred increased by 234 per cent
- Google, Facebook and YouTube all do well in Latin America. Google is the top ranked site in all ten of the listed countries, and Facebook is ranked No.2 in eight out of the 10 countries. Orkut remains strong in Brazil. Smaller social-networking sites, such as hi5, are popular in several countries on the list. Hotmail, which was popular the last time Opera looked at this region, was noticeably absent from the top 10 lists in this months report. Auction site MercadoLibre, eBay’s Latin American partner, is popular in eight of the top 10 countries
- Opera Mini users in Latin America typically prefer Nokia and Sony Ericsson handsets. However, iPhone-using Opera Mini users have made an impact in the region. The iPhone shows up in all 10 of the top 10 handset lists for Latin America, and it is among the top five handsets in nine out of the 10 Latin American countries listed in the report
“Our servers compress more than four petabytes of data each month, and that number shows no signs of slowing,” says Opera Software co-founder, Jon von Tetzchner. “As more consumers use increasingly vast amounts of mobile data, it looks like we will need more people looking after our servers in the evening hours. The heaviest mobile browsing worldwide occurs between 8pm. and midnight, regardless of where people live, their current economic situation, or the availability of broadband.”
You can access the full report here.
