In a bid to establish itself as a brand that's aware of current trends and customer needs, Spice Mobiles has partnered with Opera Software to offer Opera Mini Web browser on it's upcoming handsets in the country.

Spice Mobile customers will now be able to access their favorite Web sites quickly and cost-efficiently; Opera Mini's compression technology compresses traffic by up to 90 percent, without removing or altering Web site content. This is believed to result in faster and more robust search while keeping down download costs.

Speaking on the occasion, Kunal Ahooja, chief executive officer of Spice Mobiles, said, "Spice Mobiles has tied up with Opera to upgrade the feature offerings on our handsets, and provide a better browsing experience to our customers. The Opera Mini browser ensures a desktop-like experience as it automatically customizes the size and look of Web sites to fit the mobile screen."

Adding to it, Tatsuki Tomita, senior vice president (Consumer Solutions) of Opera Software, said, "Spice Mobiles has realized the potential of mobile browsing, and Opera is proud to be an integral part of their mission to bring full Internet access to affordable phones."

Incidentally, Spice Mobiles becomes the first handset manufacturer to offer full Web browsing with Opera Mini in India.

Meanwhile, in an earlier development, Opera and Yahoo! had announced that Yahoo! would be the default search engine on Opera Mobile and Mini. However, Opera mobile versions are now getting what Opera desktop versions have had for years -- a built-in Google default search option.

Opera Chief Executive Jon von Tetzchner explained the development, saying that Opera and Google are extending their collaboration to give users immediate access to the quality and convenience of Google's search results.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! said in its defence that the company had elected not to continue its mobile search partnership with Opera at the time.