14 DAY TRIAL // Norwegian software giant Opera has just announced the its popular mobile browser Opera Mini has reached a number of no less than 102.4 million users in March, marking an increase of 14.1 percent when compared to the previous month.
The software giant also announced that the browser's unique users grew by 85.4 percent on a yearly basis.
The company's monthly The State of the Mobile Web report also shows that the visits to news-related sites increased significantly during the month, following the earthquake that hit Japan in early March.
The company announced that a massive surge for Twitter and Japanese meteorological sites was spotted on March 11, as users were interested in accessing the latest info on the situation.
“It could be argued that the need for information is only surpassed by the need for food, security and shelter, especially in the times of crisis,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software.
“Our logs showed a sharp increase in Opera Mini usage as information seekers in Japan sought out both news sources and certain corporate sites in the days following the earthquake.”
The earthquake that struck Japan was one of the largest in history. The tsunami that followed was equally devastating.
“Millions of lives were affected by the event, some directly by the force of nature, others by the need to obtain more information about their surroundings,” Opera notes.
“Two days after the earthquake, the website of TEPCO, the owner and operator of the Fukushima power plants, rose from obscurity into the top ten list of sites visited in March in times of the nuclear crisis and rolling blackouts in Tokyo.”
Among the top sites accessed by users across Europe in March, Opera lists Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia.
The company also announced that there have been changes in the top 20 countries rankings, with Nigeria climbing up to the #5 spot, Mexico going to #11, Egypt to #16, and Bangladesh climbing to #19.