Opera Software announced at the CTIA Wireless 2009 trade show in Las Vegas that is had made an agreement with Virgin Mobile USA for the distribution of its Opera Mini on some of the carrier's mobile phones. At the same time, the company also stated that Helio LLC, a Virgin Mobile USA subsidiary, was the first company to sign a deal regarding the distribution of Opera Mini in the United States.

Partnerships made with leading mobile phone carriers like Virgin Mobile USA would allow the software company to gain more market share in the country. The company's Opera Mini will be offered as a free application download on several handsets from Virgin Mobile USA, while being offered to the carrier's pre-paid customers through the VirginXL download storefront. In addition, the software solution will come pre-installed on select devices from the operator.

“This partnership is a great way for Opera to reach Virgin Mobile USA’s large customer base in the United States,” said Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner. “It demonstrates that Virgin Mobile USA recognizes Opera as a valuable service for its customers, who will now be able to enjoy Opera Mini’s speed and amazing feature set while browsing on the go.”

Opera Mini comes as a lightweight, client-server-based mobile browser that is able to offer users unmatched browsing speeds, while also registering more than 20.5 million users all around the world every month. In the United States, the browser has registered a 73 percent year-over-year growth, according to a State of the Mobile Web report from Opera.

“We are excited to continue growing our relationship with Opera and to give our prepaid customers the choice of using Opera Mini for their browsing needs,” said Doug Britt, vice president, Mobile Data Services at Virgin Mobile USA. “Increasingly, our customers expect complete Internet browsing from their phone, and Opera Mini delivers the mobile browsing experience our customers demand.”

The Opera Mini build coming with Virgin Mobile USA handsets will include support for both English and Spanish languages, being the first such solution offered by a US operator and Opera. The Opera Mini application will be made available for the carrier's pre-paid customers at standard data prices.