Microsoft to ship Opera Mini as the default browser on phones

Microsoft is going to deliver Opera Mini as a browser on phones with the Asha, S30 or S40 operating system. Microsoft will therefore stop supplying the Nokia Xpress browser on these cheap devices.

Thanks to the license, new devices will have Opera Mini in the firmware by default, while Microsoft will “encourage” current users to exchange the Xpress browser for Opera Mini, says the Norwegian browser builder. The mobile browser differs from many other web browsers in that Opera serves pages via its own server, compressing images so that the phone needs to retrieve less data. Microsoft is doing something similar with its Data Sense service for Internet Explorer on Windows Phone.

It seems that the agreement means that Microsoft wants to get rid of the development of its own browser for cheap phones. Perhaps that’s necessary now that Microsoft is in the process of firing half of the staff it took over from Nokia. Microsoft continues to make cheap devices under the Nokia brand.

This means that a large majority of the devices that Microsoft sells under the Nokia brand will receive an Opera browser. Microsoft is estimated to sell tens of millions of these devices per quarter, often with prices well below a hundred euros. Sales of Nokia’s Windows Phones remain between five million and nine million per quarter.