Portugese to Offer Opera Web Browser on Smartphones

Optimus, Portuguese mobile operator, and Opera Software have announced an agreement to include Opera's Web browser on Optimus Zone - the new multimedia Optimus' offer, supported on Nokia 3650 and Nokia 7650 and other smartphones. Optimus is the first mobile operator that has choosen to differentiate its smartphones by including Opera by default.

Opera's breakthrough Small-Screen Rendering (SSR) technology has made the full Web available on smaller smartphones for the first time. Before Opera introduced SSR, mobile phone users were restricted to use stripped down WAP browsers based on XHTML for which there is not much content available. SSR massages HTML Web pages to fit on a smaller screen, eliminating horizontal scrolling, making the full Web useful on small screens.

"The unique Web browsing experience that Opera provides is what new data services like Optimus Zone are all about," says Miguel Almeida, Optimus Marketing and Sales Executive Administrator. "Optimus subscribers will now get the power of the full Web in their shirt pocket, ahead of everyone, not only in Portugal, but in the world."

Including Opera on smartphones greatly benefits mobile operators like Optimus. Full HTML browsing increases data traffic on the network and ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). This adds an additional lucrative revenue stream for operators besides the one already available through WAP, where traffic suffers because of the lack of available contents.

"We are excited to announce the first mobile operator that will deploy Opera in their smartphones. Just within the last month we made Opera available for the Nokia 7650 and 3650 for sale to the public on our Website, and now new Optimus subscribers in Portugal will get it for free," says Rolf Assev, Executive Vice President Marketing and Strategic Alliances, Opera Software. "We've been very impressed at the speed at which this agreement has come together; the smooth collaboration, and the speed of deployment. Dynamic companies like Optimus will shape the mobile industry in the years to come." Optimus has localized the browser, making Opera available on Optimus Zone in Portuguese."

Posted to the site on 5th June 2003