Keynote: The State of Indonesia’s mobile landscape (LIVE BLOG)

Opera is one of the most popular mobile browsers in Indonesi,a experiencing a 189 percent growth of Opera Mini users on all smartphone platforms in Indonesia from May 2012 to May 2013. Meanwhile, the number of Opera Mini users in Indonesia went up by 46 percent over the same period.

In this keynote, Fabrizio Caruso, senior vice president of Asia at Opera, will give his perspective on the state of Indonesia’s mobile landscape, using data procured from the company’s expansion into the region.

#14.00: Caruso takes the stage! He’s been in Singapore for the past eight years.

#14.02: Opera drives about 60 percent of Internet traffic in Indonesia. It’s the number one mobile browser in the country and ranks in the top three in Southeast Asia.

#14.03: Indonesia is Opera’s number two market globally behind India. Its growth in Indonesia has been driven by the rise of smartphones. From May 2012 to 2013, the number of mobile Opera users in Indonesia grew 46 percent. Caruso notes that when he checked the company internal stats this morning, from May 2013 to now, those numbers have “pretty much doubled.”

#14.05: As for smartphone brands in Indonesia, Samsung occupies nine out of the top 10 Android devices. The only exception is Smartfren Andromax, which occupies the fourth spot.

#14.06: Price is key when consumers look to purchase smartphones in Indonesia, Caruso states. Android phones in Indonesia tend to cost lests than $230.

#14.06: 68 percent of pages viewed by Opera mini users are on Facebook.

#14.06: The top five most visited websites in Indonesia by Opera Mini users – Google, Facebook, Blogspot, WordPress, and Youtube. Caruso claims that the popularity of Blogspot and WordPress are unique to Indonesia.

#14.07: We’re in the era of online shopping, Caruso says. Kaskus and tokobagus.com are among the top 15 most-visited sites among Opera Mini users.

#14.10: Last year, for the first time, 62 percent of Indonesia started going online using mobile phones. 49 percent of Internet users in urban Indonesia did so at an Internet cafe. That marked the first time when mobile Internet usage exceeded Internet usage at Internet cafes.

#14.12: Opera wants to get more people online. In Southeast Asia, most people use mobile for voice and SMS only.

#14.14: What accounts for the relative lack of mobile internet usage in Southeast Asia? Caruso says that many rural users simply have more basic needs that need to be met – checking up with friends on Facebook is not a priority. Opera hopes to address this obstacle by partnering with local telcos to offer free or inexpensive data plans.

#14.16: Opera also partners with ycab Foundatio, a local NGO, to increase Internet awareness.

#14.18: Opera has positioned itself as a leader in multimedia-oriented mobile internet browsing.

#14.19: And we’ve wrapped up!

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This is a part of our coverage of Startup Asia Jakarta 2013, our event running on November 21 and 22. For the rest of our Startup Arena pitches, see here. You can follow along on Twitter at @TechinAsia, and on our Facebook page.

(Editing by Terence Lee)