The Scandinavian web browser for mobile devices reported the usage figures since its official launch seven months ago.

Opera Mini was launched in Norway by Opera Software on August 10, 2005. After a beta version was available to Nordic countries, the browser was finally made available worldwide on January 24, 2006. Since then, Opera Software reports that approximately one billion Web pages were opened with the tiny browser.

More than five million active users worldwide have embraced Opera Mini and their number will continue to increase as more leading operators and mobile phone manufacturers across the globe will pre-install the browser on mobile phones.

The statistics that Opera Software revealed today show that Google search is the most popular .com site among mobile Internet surfers, followed by Gmail.com, Friendster.com, MySpace.com, Yahoo Messenger and hi5.com. These results can help building a profile of the general mobile Internet surfer who is obviously interested in quick access to information and communicating with friends. These two seem to be the most popular activities for people when using Opera Mini mobile browser.

“Mobile phone users are short-changed in the range of content offered by most service providers,” says Tony Cripps, senior analyst at Ovum. “Enabling handsets to access the World Wide Web greatly improves this situation, extending both mainstream and niche preferences to the mobile domain and helping to drive data traffic.”

A geographical look on the statistics, reveal that most Opera Mini usage comes from Russia, closely followed by United States, India, Scandinavia and the UK. One interesting fact revealed by the statistics is that Countries with low PC penetration but high mobile phone penetration, such as South Africa and Bangladesh, also rank high on the list of usage, which may confirm that a mobile phone with Internet connectivity is a viable alternative for a PC.

“Today is not just a great day for Opera; it’s a pivotal day for the mobile entertainment industry and operators worldwide,” says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “Opera Mini’s success shows that mobile data services have a massive potential as long as the quality of the service matches and exceeds people’s expectations. Reaching one billion page views in just seven months is a true milestone, proving that people are so satisfied with the performance and usability of Opera Mini that they use the browser actively and on a regular basis.”

The incredible success of mobile Internet is coming to confirm the importance of having a mobile friendly Web that is accessible from mobile devices for the millions of people who do not have access to a PC, but own a mobile phone.