Opera announces a million iPhone downloads

Opera's issued a rather joyous press release, saying that not only has their new iPhone browser shot to the top of all country charts in the Apple app store, but that in doing so the app has been downloaded a whopping 1m times in its first 24 hours.

"Apple said 'Yes', and iPhone users around the world said, 'Yes, please" said the company, clearly excited by the news. The app lets users surf the web at speeds that Opera claims to be six times faster than Safari, with most of the page loading done via a server at Opera's headquarters.

Opera Mini was downloaded more than one million times in its first day of availability in each market. Opera Mini is currently the number one iPhone app in the 22 featured Apple App Stores on their site, as of 8am CET today.

According to Apple’s download count, Opera Mini has been added to 1,023,380 Apple devices. We'd love to find out how many people subsequently stopped using it, deciding they preferred the handset's default browser, as anecdotal feedback that we've heard so far seems to indicate that users haven't been too keen.

If you've tried it out, tell us whether you love or loathe Opera for iPhone in the comments.