Opera mini browser claims to be the third most popular app in India

Opera Mini, a popular mobile phone web browser, has achieved 50 million users in India, making the South Asian nation the largest market by this measure for the Norwegian company that's now scouting for possible acquisitions in the mobile advertising space in the country.

The mobile browser is now the third most popular app in India, behind messaging app WhatsApp and social media network Facebook. Opera says that smartphone users in India grew by 110 percent over the past year and now account for 50 percent of the user base.

This leaves 25 million Indian users still browsing the Web on non-smartphones running the Java-based version of the browser. The figure represents a huge untapped market for smartphone makers, who have eagerly ventured into the world's second most populous country.

Opera Software has also claimed that Opera Mini mobile browser has reached the 50 million user milestone in India.

Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software said, “Opera Mini’s famous compression technology, which makes browsing faster and helps users cut down on their data costs, is extremely relevant for India. It feels fantastic to be embraced by so many Indians and I’m confident that India will play a key role in Opera’s global vision of bringing the next billion people online.”

The Opera Mini browser supports 13 Indian languages, which are: Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese and Kashmiri. The browser also allows for data compression, which increases speed while browsing, something that is crucial in India given the slow Internet speeds.