You forget that Mini is a proxy browser that does a large amount of data compression. When your mobile network is constricted and data locally expensive then you want to use the minimum possible.
Of course. But you're not controlling your variables. The developing markets are "constricted" in precisely the same way that the first world markets were about 6-9 years ago. So they need different hardware and software.
Opera was doing very well in the first world markets 6-9 years ago, for exactly that reason. They lost the market almost entirely. So, why would the developing world be any different?
The argument was the browser as gateway to Facebook. So it wouldn't matter if the browser was ultimately doomed. As long as those users became Facebook users and stuck with Facebook even after they upgraded to newer phones/browsers.
AOL, Compuserve, et al hung in for a very long time, even after people begrudgingly ditched their dialup for broadband, solely because they were so comfortable with AOL from that first experience.
Experience suggests it could very well work.
I think the bigger question is whether it would be cost-effective. i.e. to what degree would that be effective in capturing social network market share in those regions, is it the most cost-effective way to capture that share, would it be enough to simply pay Opera to 'partner' with Facebook, etc.
Opera was doing very well years ago because it was a much better desktop browser than IE or Netscape. It didn't do Turbo than and it declined as Mozilla got it's act together and chrome appeared.
Opera is popular in the developing world for an entirely different reason - the Turbo/mini compression - it may lose that market if other browsers also do compression.
My experience is actually that 3G service is a lot cheaper in poor countries than in rich countries. They can't overprice it, they wouldn't get any customers then.
For example - here in Cambodia I subscribe to a 2GB 3,5G package for just $5 a month. The reception and speed is great in urban areas.
However, if you're just talking about extremely poor countries without any 3G service, then you're absolutely correct. There's not too many of them left though, just some countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Mobile data is getting cheap incredibly fast and betting a company on providing data compression is stupid. It has worked out well for Opera so far (kudos to them, I'm Norwegian), but continuing to base their income on it is a losing battle. They have to pivot in order to still be relevant and being bought by Facebook is, in my opinion, a good way of doing it.
