Opera Software has signed a global deal with Bharti Airtel. The agreement will see a customised and co-branded version of the Opera Mini browser made available to Airtel customers in 17 African countries (as well as across India and South Asia).

Opera Mini currently has 168 million users worldwide, and uses unique proxy-server-based technology to compress data in order to shrink the pages before they are delivered, while still retaining the functionality of a normal Web page.

Opera CEO Lars Boilesen says Airtel’s presence in emerging markets, combined with Opera’s compression technology, will help make the mobile Web available to millions of new users.

“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,” says Boilesen.

Chief marketing officer for Airtel Africa, Andre Beyers, says: “In today’s African markets, data services are quickly becoming as important to our customers as voice services.”