Since its launch two years ago, one of the leading online news website, Opera News has become one of the most used news and content apps in the world, with more than 160 million users. Today, Opera launches Opera News Lite, a smaller version of the popular Opera News application, designed for devices with limited data storage capabilities. With a download size of less than one megabyte, Opera News Lite is also a fast download for people on limited mobile networks.
According to Head of Marketing and Distribution at Opera, Jørgen Arnesen, Opera News Lite was developed as per requests from users. “The app is extremely responsive to slow network conditions as it minimizes the use of data and resources. It also helps smartphone users save storage space on their mobile devices, especially for users with older handsets.” said,
“At the end of last year, there were more than 3.8 billion mobile internet users in the world, with smartphones representing 65% of mobile connections according to GSMA. In many cases, those smartphones do not have enough storage capacity and some of them are located in remote areas that often struggle with network connectivity. Opera News Lite has been optimized for such cases, making information more accessible for everyone regardless of geographical location or network connectivity conditions.
“Opera News Lite offers the key features of the regular Opera News app such as personalized news articles, notifications about breaking news, and exclusive original content. However, Opera News Lite is ten times lighter than the regular version of the current version of the Opera News application.
“More local content with more than 35 thousand content creators
“In 2019, Opera announced the launch of Opera News Hub, a new editorial platform where African authors and bloggers can create online content and share it with the fast-growing Opera user base of more than 350 million users worldwide.
“In less than six months, more than 35,000 African content creators have joined Opera News Hub, uploading articles every day to the platform. In addition, Opera News Hub connects seamlessly with other Opera mobile applications including the new Opera News Lite. This means that users in Africa are able to read more local stories when accessing the app thanks to the quick expansion of local authors in Opera News Hub.
Opera News Lite is powered by the same AI news engine used in the full version of Opera News and the popular Opera Mini browser. The AI system studies users’ news-reading behaviour in real-time and learns from it in order to provide them with personalized news. This means people get faster and easier access to the news and videos that interest them.
“The new Opera local data center has already proven effective as it reduces connection latency, providing Nigerians with 4x faster navigation on any of the Opera products.
“We believe that Opera News Lite will become the fastest online news application on the market. Due to its unique characteristics and by connecting to our local data servers in Nigeria, users can be confident that they will access news faster than before regardless of any connectivity conditions.” said Arnesen.
Opera News Lite is now available for download in more than 40 countries, including, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Egypt, Algeria, Tanzania, Senegal, Zambia, Guinée, Morocco, Congo, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Benin, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Etiopia, Libya, Angola, Tunisia, Mali, Niger, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Tchad, Madagascar, Togo, Gabon, Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania, India, Indonesia, Russia, and the United States.
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