Norwegian software company Opera Software announced on Tuesday that its mobile browser solution Opera Mini was used in September 2009 by more than 35.6 million people all around the world. According to the company, the figure marks an 11.5 percent increase in usage from the previous month, as well as an increase of over 150 percent when compared to the same month a year ago.

At the same time, the company also announced that the use of Opera Mini in the top ten countries drove mobile phone owners to save approximately 8.1 billion USD. The top 10 countries when it comes to Opera Mini usage are: Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Poland and Vietnam. According to the company, Vietnam has just entered the top ten, leaving behind Nigeria.

Other findings of the report also include:
- Those 35.6 million people viewed 15 billion pages in September 2009. Since August, page-views have gone up 7.2%. Since September 2008, page-views have increased 230%. On an average day, Opera Mini users view 500 million Web pages on their phones.
- Opera Mini users generated nearly 227 million MB of data for operators worldwide in September 2009. Since August, the data consumed went up by 8.7%. Data in Opera Mini is compressed up to 90%, meaning Opera Mini servers processed up to 2.1 petabytes of data this month. Since September 2008, data traffic is up 224%.

The reports on Opera Mini usage are published monthly, and they also deliver details on the top global trends related to mobile web browsing. According to this report, users in the United States and the United Kingdom are those to save the most by using Opera Mini, considering the Internet usage and the MB cost. Each month, users in the top 10 countries save up to 672 million USD by using Opera Mini and its compression features. More details on the report can be found here.

“We are on a mission to bring the Web to everyone, on their terms,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. “More than half the world’s population has a mobile phone. By making the mobile Web more affordable and available on almost any mobile phone, we help democratize it. This means we can expand the reach of the Web in a way that defies imagination.”

The latest version of Opera Mini, namely Opera Mini 5 beta, is available for download from Softpedia for BlackBerry and Java.