14 DAY TRIAL // Today, Opera Software announced a partnership with wireless carrier Vodafone for the launch of a special flavor of the Opera Mini for users in Ghana.
The availability of this mobile browser is part of the global partnership that Vodafone and Opera signed a while ago, and which resulted in the release of a co-branded Opera Mini browser flavor in other countries around the world as well.
Opera Mini, a highly customizable mobile browser, is currently compatible with over 3,000 mobile phone models, Opera announced.
“Operators, like Vodafone, can build their own user web experience with a co-branded Opera Mini solution, giving consumers a consistent experience, look and feel relevant to their market and operator of choice,” the company states.
Opera Mini arrives on devices with data compression technologies that enable it to compress web pages by up to 90 percent.
This translates into less data being used when accessing the web, which means that people will be able to do that more often, while paying the same as they would when using another browser.
“The deal will give Ghanaians one-click web access via Speed Dial shortcuts and Smart Page notifications from their favorite Vodafone portals, news and social-networking sites,” Opera continues.
Vodafone accounts for around 8 percent of the total mobile subscribers in Ghana. This partnership should allow it to enhance the access to mobile web in the country, since many users here do not have computers, but rely on mobiles for web navigation.
“The days of mobile phones simply being for calls and texting are long gone, with operators offering more types of content, including streaming media, video, entertainment, maps and gaming, as well as a host of other useful apps and tools,” Opera says.
Back in August, Opera focused on analyzing the mobile web trends in Africa, and discovered that people in Ghana like to navigate on the Internet, and that they usually access Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Goal, Waptrick, GhanaWeb, Twitter, Dictionary.com and BBC.co.uk.