The Bolt mobile browser from Bitstream Inc. has been installed in 1 million phones after just 19 weeks of availability. Designed for simple “feature” phones to advanced BlackBerry models, Bolt has averaged greater than 50% growth since its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February. Also since its introduction, Bolt users have consumed more than 22 Tbytes of data from 61 million Web pages.

Bitstream attributes part of Bolt’s international success to the popularity of social networking sites. In fact, the company says, Facebook is the number-one site visited by Bolt users, while Orkut leads in other countries. Despite the differences in Web destinations, though, the usage patterns are similar around the globe, according to Bitstream.

The company also says that Bolt’s enhanced browsing experience leads users to spend more time online via their mobile phones. More than 20% of Bolt users spend 30 minutes surfing the Internet per session, with more than half of those—a figure that continues to grow—spending more than an hour per session. In addition to social networking, top destinations include search, Web-based e-mail, and video sites around the world. 

Bitstream claims that Bolt is consistently at least 25% to 30% faster than competing mobile browsers. Built with proprietary compression, navigation, and rendering technologies, Bolt lets users find and read information quickly and easily via desktop-style split-screen and full-screen modes, the company says. Once users have navigated to the specific section of the large Web page they are viewing, they can then zoom in to display clear text and images.

The Bolt browser also offers video streaming from popular services like YouTube, vids.myspace.com, video.yahoo.com, blip.tv, dailymotion.com, metacafe.com, and other sites even on average mobile phones. Of the total bandwidth used by all Bolt users, nearly one-third was consumed by streaming video.

Additionally, users can easily add and select favorites and view their browsing history, Bitstream says. Bolt also offers intuitive keystroke shortcuts for easier navigation and content selection. It provides protection against spyware and malicious or faulty add-ons. And, its 23:1 compression uses less data than competing browsers. Bolt is now available for free to anyone as part of its public beta test at http://boltbrowser.com.