Based on the costs of browsing the Web on a mobile phone (on a per MB basis), users in a representative sample of 10 countries save over $802 million per month, or over $9.6 billion per year, Opera says, though it is possible to question that estimate.
Of course, that estimate does not take into account pricing for users who have unlimited-use data plans, though. If you have a flat-rate plan, the compression makes no difference, cost-wise.
Using estimates from typical usage in its sample of 10 countries, Opera estimates that the global cost of browsing is 47 cents per MByte. Based on that figure and the amount of data transferred by Opera Mini users each month, we calculate that Opera Mini users around the world save over $2.2 billion per month, or over $27.4 billion per year.
One can quarrel with the savings estimates, though. Opera assumes a cost of $2 per megabyte for users in the United States. That works out to a cost of $2048 a month for use of 1 gigabyte worth of data. Most users quickly can figure out that they can benefit from an unlimited data plan costing $30 to $60 a month.
At $30 a month, a gigabyte nominally costs just three cents. Perhaps a better way to view the data is that if users purchased their mobile broadband bandwidth using the most-expensive a la carte plans, they might save the money Opera claims. In practice, most users can figure out they need to buy "wholesale rather than retail."
Using estimates from typical usage in its sample of 10 countries, Opera estimates that the global cost of browsing is 47 cents per MByte. Based on that figure and the amount of data transferred by Opera Mini users each month, we calculate that Opera Mini users around the world save over $2.2 billion per month, or over $27.4 billion per year.
One can quarrel with the savings estimates, though. Opera assumes a cost of $2 per megabyte for users in the United States. That works out to a cost of $2048 a month for use of 1 gigabyte worth of data. Most users quickly can figure out that they can benefit from an unlimited data plan costing $30 to $60 a month.
At $30 a month, a gigabyte nominally costs just three cents. Perhaps a better way to view the data is that if users purchased their mobile broadband bandwidth using the most-expensive a la carte plans, they might save the money Opera claims. In practice, most users can figure out they need to buy "wholesale rather than retail."
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