Bharti Airtel, which has operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, said it will offer a customized and co-branded version of Opera Mini internet browser for Airtel across its operations.
“With this, over 253 million Airtel customers across countries including India, South Asia and Africa will now be able to leverage Opera Mini’s unique proxy-server-based technology to compress data by up to 90% and decrease their data transfer costs,” Airtel said.
Opera Software has agreements with 13 out of the top 30 operators globally. Used by over 168 million users, Opera Mini is the world’s most popular web browser on mobile phones.
Opera Mini is arguably the most popular independent mobile browser in the world.
Designed for speed and ease of use, Opera Mini provides remarkably fast browsing on nearly any mobile phone. It is proven to make browsing up to nine times as fast as client-only mobile browsers on both 2/2.5G and 3G networks. With its small footprint and high level of usability, Opera Mini provides a consistent user experience across a broad range of handsets.
The primary reason for Opera Mini’s success has been the simplification of complicated, desktop-oriented web pages to suit a small screen and slower processors on the mobile phone.
It also helps mobile operators like Airtel lower the data load on their networks by compressing the traffic.
“We are excited to bring a superior browsing platform to Airtel mobile customers across India and South Asia by leveraging Opera Mini’s tried-and-tested set of solutions”, said K Srinivas, President – Consumer Business, Bharti Airtel.
“Our primary drive is to provide the best user experience, no matter what device people use. There are millions of users with basic mobile phones instead of smartphones, and Opera Mini gives even the most basic phone a smartphone-like web experience,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software.
“We are happy to welcome Airtel into our partner community. Airtel’s strong presence in emerging markets, combined with Opera Mini’s technology, will make the mobile web available to millions of new users.”