Bookmark this category

StatCounterGlobalOpera Software has released its new mobile browser to carriers today. Opera Mobile 10 will work on Android, Windows Mobile, BREW and Symbian / S60 phones. Aside from widespread compatibility, it features a user interface that can be tailored by OEMs to work the same on different handsets

Perhaps the slickest thing is that the UI is built on top of the browser, not as part of it. The browser can have the top UI layer quickly and cheaply tailored to work for a different OS or carrier. This is an advantage to carriers — it could reduce their model-specific software costs.

Opera has shipped 135 million copies of its mobile browsers globally. This represents 26 percent of the mobile browsing market share. Web research group Global Stats suggests that iPhone native Safari is a near 2nd, with about 22 percent. After Nokia at 19 percent, the field drops off considerably. It is worth noting, though, that iTouch (again, Safari is native on this device) represents 11.83 percent of the mobile browsing market. If Global Stats is accurate, Apple products in whichever iteration are dominating mobile browsing market share.

[Graph courtesy of gs.statcounter.com]