Opera has announced the availability of Opera News Lite, a slimmed version of its existing Opera News app. Opera News Lite is geared toward users with low-end devices or restrictive data plans; the app is less than 1MB in size, and is more responsive on slow networks.
Opera News’ foothold is in Africa where mobile data costs a lot of money, network speeds are slow, and mobile devices have lower amounts of storage. By launching Opera News Lite, Opera is hoping that it can reach new users who may not be able to afford a lot of data or are using an older device with less storage space.
Aside from launching the new app, Opera stated that it has recently installed local data centres in Lagos and Mombasa, this should speed things up for users that live in Kenya, Nigeria, or nearby countries. Discussing the benefits of the data centres, Alejandro Viquez from Opera, said:
“Our new local data centres have already proven to effectively reduce connection latency, providing users with 4x faster navigation on any of the Opera products. With these available, we guarantee that you will be able to access news faster than before, regardless of any connectivity conditions.”
The app is now available on the Play Store in 40 countries mainly in Africa, however, people in India, Indonesia, Russia, and the United States are also able to download the app.