According to the freshly published Net Applications‘ monthly tallies, mobile phones and tablets now account for more than 5% of global web browsing.

In the United States alone, however, that percentage is even higher – 8.2%.

In terms of the most popular mobile devices American users browse the web with, the iPhone leads the pack with 2.9%. Android phones are next with 2.6%. The iPad claims 2.1%, and BlackBerry phones take all but 0.6%.

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According to a new report from Jumptap, a majority of US mobile web users spend more time engaging with content through their mobile device’s browser than mobile applications, particularly those that are ad-supported.

Data from the month of April is compiled in the new S.T.A.T. (Simple Targeting & Audience Trends) report.

The findings indicate that more than 58% of mobile internet users are getting content through their browser, as opposed to 42% from ad-supported apps.

The report evaluated 10 billion ad requests made to the Jumptap network by 83 million unique users.

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Today we continue our #FollowFriday segment in which we follow the many excellent companies and individuals that make up the fast-paced mobile marketing and advertising industries.  If you have any suggestions for great companies or feel we’re leaving someone out, hit us up in the comments, tweet us at @mobileMW or shoot us an email at editor[at]mobilemarketingwatch.com.

This week we continue focusing on individuals and companies within the mobile marketing and advertising industries who represent thought leadership.  These companies and individuals play an important role in the mobile segment through one capacity or another, so if you’re interested in learning more about what makes the mobile marketing industry tick — besides being a dedicated reader of MMW — do yourself a favor and follow the industry insiders and thought leaders we’ve compiled below.  Also, if you’d like us to feature you and/or your company, please add a comment below.  We’ll review the type of resources you publish and consider you in future posts.

AlertU @alertuhq	Mobile Internet Content Coalition @theMICC_org	Appia @appia	Opera Software @opera
Msgme @msgmehq	mobileStorm @mobileStorm	Tatango @tatango	Waterfall Mobile @waterfallmobile

You can almost hear the voice of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers’ films as you read the headline.

100 million.

That’s how many people now use the Opera browser each month on their mobile phones.

According to Thursday’s State of the Mobile Web report from Opera, 90.4 million people now use Opera Mini every month. Another 15 million people use Opera Mobile each month. All told, roughly 105 million people now use Opera on their phones.

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New data out from comScore suggests Google’s Android OS has overtaken Apple’s iOS for the first time in terms of U.S. smartphone subscriber share.

ComScore estimates there’s now roughly 63M smartphone subscribers in the U.S., up 7.3 percent from the preceding three month period.  Of which, RIM still leads the pack with 31.6 percent of total subscribers, with Android in the number two spot at 28.7 percent and Apple at number 3 with an even 25 percent.  Microsoft and Palm round out the top five at 8.4 percent and 3.7 percent respectively.

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Opera has hit a new high note in terms of its Mini browser.

A whopping eighty million users around the globe tuned to the Opera Mini mobile browser in November 2010. That figure represents a nearly 5% increase in usage month-over-month and a substantial 91% increase year-over-year.

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Opera today released its latest “State of the Mobile Web” report in which it details continued strong growth of its Opera Mini browser combined with impressive usage statistics and insight.

In October, Opera Mini had over 76.3 million users, a 7.1% increase from September 2010 and up more than 92% compared to October 2009.  Even more impressive, Opera Mini users viewed over 41.6 billion pages in October 2010, representing an increase of 142% since last October.  In terms of data, which I always find the most interesting, the company claims users generated over 616 million MBs of data for operators worldwide — up 15.1% since September and up 134% since last year.  Since data is compressed up to 90%, the company claims users would have viewed over 5.7 petabytes of data in October.

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