Yes, according to State of the Mobile Web, Oct 2008 report by Opera, Malaysia has the highest mobile internet user growth in Southeast Asia. Although the usage is measured solely on Opera Mini, it is still an useful benchmark on mobile internet adoption and trend in this region.



Opera Mini has only 0.06% market share compared to both desktop and mobile browsers, but nevertheless it has big market share in mobile browsers. This is because it is being shipped on major mobile manufacturers and available to various mobile operating system (excluding iPhone OS), making it the alternative browser of choice for mobile users.

Top sites ranked by unique users
1. google.com
2. friendster.com
3. yahoo.com
4. gamejump.com
5. facebook.com
6. myspace.com
7. youtube.com
8. my.opera.com
9. wikipedia.org
10. utusan.com.my

Again, this proves that Friendster is more popular than Facebook in Malaysia. Generally, Friendster, Facebook and hi5 are very popular in this social network mad region, with the exception of Vietnam. Mobage Town in Southeast Asia? Perhaps not.

Social network aside, the Malay news portal - Utusan is the only local site that made it to the top 10. On another hand, Nokia and Sony Ericsson are the most popular handset brands among Opera Mini users in Malaysia.

Conclusion, the growth of mobile web users presents exciting opportunities for both mobile developers and operators. Local mobile developers to be more innovative with their mobile services (such as localized content or location-based service), while telcos - please roll out attractive and affordable flat-rate data plans. You might need to recover the drop of your voice call revenue after MNP, don't you?