Opera Software ASA on Wednesday said it is seeking Vietnamese partners to develop and localize mobile applications.

Phillip Gronvold, product manager of Opera Software, demonstrates the new Opera Mini and Opera Mobile

Vietnam is second only to Indonesia in Southeast Asia for use of Opera mobile browser and it is ranked seventh worldwide, Gronvold said.

Vietnamese mobile users apparently choose the browser because it is able to compress data of up to 90% and it is cost-effective.

“Due to the largest number of Vietnam users, Opera Software wants to team with local telecom and digital content developers to offer more suitable services for Vietnamese users,” he said. Earlier this month, Opera launched Opera Application Store with some 140,000 applications.

“We offer both free and paid applications. Thus, we encourage Vietnamese developers to cooperate with us for profit sharing,” he noted.

To make inroads into Vietnam, Opera recently completed a Vietnamese version of its website at http://www.opera.com. In September last year, Opera announced it has over two million mobile browser users in Vietnam. Local mobile users use at least 6MB and monthly access 237 web pages.