Opera Mini spreads its wings — coming to INQ phones

London, UK and Oslo, Norway – March 1, 2011

The Opera Mini browser is making its way to even more handsets in 2011. Opera Software and INQ have entered into an agreement where the Opera Mini mobile browser will be preinstalled on several INQ smartphones based on the Android platform, as well as on INQ feature phones based on BREW.

The handsets with the Opera Mini browser will first be rolled out in March 2011 in the United Kingdom, followed by Australia and other markets.

The Opera Mini browser is the world’s most popular mobile browser with more than 90 million active users worldwide. Opera Mini’s unique features such as Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, password manager and Opera Link, which synchronizes users” bookmarks across multiple devices, makes it the preferred browser over the device’s native browser.

Opera users also notice a significant boost in speed while browsing the Web thanks to Opera Mini’s compression technology, which shrinks webpages by up to 90 percent. In addition to speedy browsing, even on slow networks, this leads to cost savings of up to 90 percent when paying per MB of usage.

INQ, a brand backed by Hutchison Whampoa, has pioneered the development of social mobiles and has launched several award-winning phones in many countries.

“INQ has been born out of the Internet, and having a great browser for mobile has been something we wanted to get right,” said Frank Meehan, INQ CEO. “We”ve worked with some great partners in the development of the INQ Cloud Touch, and Opera has been one which shares similar values around making things fast and simple.”

“At Opera, we are always trying to get our browsers on as many devices as possible, and we are excited to work with INQ and serve its customers,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software.

About INQ

INQ Mobile is pioneering the development of Social Mobiles as part of its commitment to making the mobile the center of your web experience. The company was founded to address a growing need among operators across the world for advanced mobile Internet handsets for the mass market that drive data revenue, minimize subsidies and minimize network load. INQ draws on the strengths of its parent company, Hutchison Whampoa, which made an early investment in global 3G networks. For more information visit: www.inqmobile.com or follow us on Twitter @inqmobile.