Bolt, the latest kid on the mobile Internet browser block, has caught the fancy of Indian cellphone users. According to a press release from BitStream, the company behind Bolt, India now accounts for the largest number of Bolt users outside North America with one of every six users coming from India. Bolt claims to be 25-50 percent faster than Opera Mini, which till now wore the fastest mobile Internet browser crown. 

The press release revealed an interesting fact according to which nine of the top ten phones in India were dumb feature phones while those in the US were all smartphones! We caught up with Anna Chagnon, Bolt’s CEO to learn more about the browser and mobile browsing habits of its users.

CP: HOW is Bolt different from other free mobile web browsers?

Anna: The chief differences between BOLT and other free mobile web browsers are speed, streaming video support, desktop PC-style browsing, and broad device support. BOLT routinely loads pages at least 25-50 percent faster than the next fastest mobile browser (Opera Mini). BOLT is the only J2ME mobile browser that supports streaming video from top video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Google and MySpace. Unlike other mobile browsers, BOLT does not reformat, repurpose or remove any content from the full desktop version of websites (users can manually choose to load WAP sites, but BOLT loads the complete desktop version by default). Finally BOLT runs well on virtually any device that supports J2ME, meaning that BOLT can run on 75 percent of the world’s four billion mobile phones.

CP: You claim that Bolt is 25-50 percent faster than other browsers, How is this achieved?

Anna: BOLT’s speed advantage is achieved through an architecture optimized for speed and scalability. This incorporates a combination of proprietary technologies, including a server-side optimization technology that compresses data by a factor of 23:1 before sending it to the client.

CP: It is interesting to see users in the US use Bolt browsers on smartphones that already have a decent Internet browser. What, according to you, is a reason for that?

Anna: The primary factor driving US Smartphone users to adopt BOLT is our significant speed advantage over the BlackBerry browser, and other Smartphone browsers. While we already mentioned that BOLT is 25-50 percent faster than Opera Mini, the speed advantage is far greater compared to client-side only browsers. Additionally sometimes these users use BOLT due to BOLT’s high web standards compliance. We’re also seeing a full third of the bandwidth consumed by the BOLT servers going to video streaming, so BOLT’s video support is surely another factor that is driving growth.

Further, it appears that US Smartphone users more closely fit the “early adopter” profile – they are more likely to read tech and mobile blogs, and are more familiar with downloading and installing third party apps on their devices. While we are happy to see growth in any market, since BOLT has been optimized to run well on entry-level, resource-constrained devices, it is particularly gratifying to see so many feature phone owners in India downloading and installing BOLT.

CP: Traditionally, it is thought that mobile Internet is used only for getting information in a hurry. What do your findings suggest?

Anna: We believe that this traditional “information in a hurry” mobile Internet usage was the result of the poor user experience, and reduced amount of information and features associated with WAP sites. Since BOLT offers users a full-featured, uncompromised mobile browsing experience we’re seeing the average user session increasing. Over 20 percent of our users’ sessions last longer than 30 minutes, and over 50 percent last longer than 5 minutes. Finally, the stat that I mentioned earlier about one-third of our bandwidth going to video streaming is further evidence that mobile internet users are using BOLT the same way they use their desktop browsers, and not simply to find information in a hurry.

CP: How many users do you have at the moment globally?

Anna: BOLT has been installed over 800,000 times.

CP: Bolt is still in its Beta. What more features can we expect in the final version?

Anna: There will be continued improvements and enhancements in the final version, but we are not able to pre-announce specifics.