Opera Limited (Opera), together with its subsidiaries, provides personalized content discovery platforms and offers gaming services for hundreds of millions of global internet users.
The company conducts its business mainly through its operating companies, including in particular Opera Norway AS, a private limited liability company incorporated under the laws of Norway.
The company offers users around the globe a range of products and services that include a variety of PC and mobile browsers,...
Opera Limited (Opera), together with its subsidiaries, provides personalized content discovery platforms and offers gaming services for hundreds of millions of global internet users.
The company conducts its business mainly through its operating companies, including in particular Opera Norway AS, a private limited liability company incorporated under the laws of Norway.
The company offers users around the globe a range of products and services that include a variety of PC and mobile browsers, its Opera Gaming portals and development tools, its Opera News content recommendation products, its audience extension product (namely Opera Ads platform) and a number of Web3 and e-commerce products and services.
The company's browser products include Opera Mini, Opera Browser for Android and iOS, Opera for Computers, Opera GX and Opera GX Mobile, separate browsers tailored for gamers. The newest addition to the company's family of browsers is Web3-centric browser for PC (computers running versions of the operating systems Windows, Linux or macOS) and mobile, namely Opera Crypto Browser, which is tailored for crypto enthusiasts. The development of features for the Opera Crypto Browser allows the company to determine which Web3 features might be desirable for all of its users and implemented in other Opera Browsers. The company's browsers had approximately 290 million average monthly active users (MAUs) in 2022.
The browser is an increasingly strategic application-often serving as an access point for content, e-commerce, gaming and fintech activities on the internet, and Opera is utilizing this strategic position to launch and scale new offerings.
Opera Gaming, the company's emerging video game focused division, started with Opera GX, a browser tailored for gamers. The company launched its GX Browser for PCs in the second quarter of 2019 followed by a mobile version in May 2021. In 2021, the company purchased GameMaker Studio, which allows anyone to develop a video game in a low-code environment. Building on the strength of the company's GX browser user base and the community of developers using GameMaker Studio, the company launched GX.games, a gaming portal which allows gamers to find and play games developed using GameMaker Studio. In 2022, Opera GX reached over 17 million MAUs and GX Mobile reached over 3 million MAUs.
Opera News, the company's AI-driven content platform enabled by big data technologies, initially as part of its browser and later as a stand-alone app, leveraging its large user base and well-known brand in order to deliver a personalized and relevant content experience at scale. To ensure access to compelling content, Opera News Hub was launched to enable local content creators to publish exclusive content on the company's platform, which has helped grow engagement on the service by increasing page views and time spent. The company has expanded the platform to offer customized experiences for certain particular verticals, such as football (soccer). Opera News is offered in a number of customizations and under a variety of brands, most notably Apex News, which collectively make it one of the most downloaded and used global news applications. In 2022, Opera News had an average of 172 million MAUs, which included 31 million MAUs from standalone news apps.
Opera Ads platform, the company's audience extension product, an online marketing platform that allows its advertising partners to reach an even larger audience than the ones offered by Opera's owned and operated apps and websites.
The company has begun to launch Web3 and e-commerce products, including a premium VPN and the Opera cashback rewards program that allows browser users to reap rewards from their online shopping.
The company intends to continue to leverage its brand, as well as its large and engaged user base to launch additional consumer facing products in the future.
Segments
The company operates through two segments, Browser and News, and Other.
Browser and News, which includes Opera's PC and mobile browsers, gaming portals and game development tools, Opera News content recommendation products, and Opera's audience extension allowing advertisers to take advantage of Opera's advertising network on third party inventories. These products and services are to an extent integrated.
Other, which includes licensing of Opera's proprietary technology to third parties and provisions of related maintenance, support and hosting services, provision of professional services, and provision of customized browser configurations to mobile operators.
Products and Users
The company's products include Opera Browsers - the web browsers Opera Mini, Opera Browser for Android and iOS, Opera for Computers, the Opera GX and Opera Crypto Browser for PCs and mobile; Opera Gaming - which builds on the success of Opera GX with the GX.games gaming portal and the GameMaker Studio 2 video game development engine; the personalized Opera News content aggregation and recommendation platform; the intelligent online marketing platform - Opera Ads; and its Web3 and e-commerce offerings.
The company's cloud-based technologies enable hundreds of millions of users to discover and interact with the content and services that matter most to them. The application of leading AI-powered technologies and advanced data analytics and the recommendation engine built into the company's browsers and news apps, and other products and services, give its users a better, faster and more personalized online experience and enable advertisers to target relevant users in a more precise way.
Opera Browsers
PC Browsers: Opera for Computers and Opera GX
Opera for Computers is one of the most innovative and differentiated PC browsers on the market, catering to the high-end user segment that requires performance and features beyond those offered by the default system browsers on Windows, macOS and variants of Linux. Opera for Computers uses an Opera-tuned version of the Chromium browsing engine carefully optimized for performance metrics, such as speed and laptop battery consumption. In addition, the company provides users with unique features that are not found in other major web browsers, including a free, built-in VPN service that enhances user privacy and security, especially for laptops on public networks, subject to compliance with relevant local regulatory requirements. The browser also includes a native ad block feature that increases page loading speeds by up to five times as compared to when the ad block feature is disabled or not present as in certain other browsers. The company's PC browser makes it easier to shop online with built-in currency and foreign unit conversion and makes communication easier by embedding social network services, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram and Twitter in the browser's sidebar. In November 2022, the company became the first browser to add a built-in TikTok feature to the sidebar of its desktop browser. In 2022, the company continued to add features and functionality to its Opera for Computers offering.
Opera GX is a web browser tailored for gamers. Opera GX allows PC gamers to customize and tune their browsers to improve their gaming experience. In September 2019, Opera GX won the Red Dot Award in the Interface and User Experience Design category. Features, such as GX Control and embedding Twitch in the browser, differentiates Opera GX from Opera for Computers. In December 2022, the company announced that Opera GX had exceeded 20 million MAUs across the desktop and mobile versions.
The company had a large and active global PC browser user base with 74.8 million average MAUs in 2022. The company's PC browser user base has historically been prominent in regions that value its innovations in browser technology and more recently in regions where gaming is particularly popular, such as Europe and the Americas.
Mobile Browsers: Opera Browser for Android, Opera Browser for iOS, Opera GX Mobile and Opera Mini and Opera Crypto Browser
The company's mobile browser products include Opera Browser for Android and iOS, Opera GX Mobile and Opera Mini, as well as an early access version of a Web3-centric mobile browser, namely Opera Crypto Browser. The company's mobile browser products are fast and optimized for mobile browsing. All mobile browsers come with native ad blockers, which provide users with the option to further increase browser speed by blocking ads that are often slow and intrusive.
The Opera Browser for Android is the company's flagship Android smartphone browser. It comes with a full browser engine, based on the Chromium project, and a user-friendly interface designed to give users a fast browsing experience on high-end smartphones. Opera for Android is a powerful and feature-rich browser, optimized for mobile phones with larger screens and tablets.
The company launched the iOS version of the Opera Browser, branded as Opera Touch. Opera Browser for iOS is designed for mobile phone users to engage with the browser with one hand while they are on the move. Opera for iOS offers a rich feature set, including a native ad-blocker, a Crypto Wallet and the Flow syncing feature that enables users to continue browsing across their devices. In March 2021, the company rebranded its award-winning browser Opera Touch on iOS and changed its name to Opera.
In May 2021, the company announced the launch of Opera GX Mobile - the world's first mobile browser designed specifically for gamers. Opera GX Mobile users enjoy custom navigation with the Fast Action Button, or FAB, using vibration and haptic feedback. Opera GX Mobile also distinguishes itself with a unique gaming-inspired design supporting different color themes.
Opera Mini is a mobile browser that provides a faster browser experience on practically any Android smartphone or feature phone. Through the application of advanced data compression and savings technologies, Opera Mini has enabled hundreds of millions of users around the world to access the internet through their mobile devices, providing a reliable browsing experience regardless of their network conditions. Opera Mini is a cloud-based browser that is fast to install and takes up very little space on a user's mobile phone. When browsing with Opera Mini, the data traffic can go through Opera servers, which compress web pages, including text and images, towards only 10% of their original size, reducing the amount of data that needs to be sent over mobile networks that are often congested. Moreover, the reduced data traffic consumption can provide users with a significantly lower data cost compared to the default browsers found on their phones. Opera Mini averaged 152 million users worldwide during 2022, with over 98 million MAU in its Android version alone. In addition, Opera is one of the most widely used mobile browsers in emerging markets in 2022 according to Statcounter.
Building on its tradition of creating bespoke browsing experiences, in January 2022, the company launched a public beta of browsers for PC and mobile that are tailored to provide crypto enthusiasts a gateway to web3 and crypto, namely Opera Crypto Browser. While it is early in the adoption of web3, Opera is positioning itself for the adoption of such services.
The company's mobile browser user base reached 215 million average MAUs in 2022, of which 161.9 million were smartphone users and 53.6 million were feature phone users. In 2022, the company continued to reduce acquisition spend in South Asia (includes the four distinct markets of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), a low ARPU region, while reallocating the company's resources to growing its users in high ARPU markets, such as North America and Western Europe.
Gaming Initiative: Opera Gaming
Building on the success of Opera GX, Opera is developing a community of gamers and game creators. This included creating the Opera Gaming division that provides GameMaker, a 2D gaming development platform. The focus of Opera Gaming will be to grow the user base of Opera GX and build increased functionality within and outside the Opera GX browser, using GameMaker.
GameMaker provides game creators with a complete set of tools to create games for any platform. In the third quarter of 2021, Opera made it free for creators to develop games with GameMaker and publish those games to Opera GX. In 2022, GameMaker started monthly game releases, as compared to quarterly releases previously. Numerous product updates throughout the year brought long-awaited Long Term Support (promise of long-term updates important for console development), shaders, graphics filters, audio filters, and initial multiplayer support, to the platform. In November 2021, the company launched GX Games, a portal connecting its Opera GX browser users with the games created by developers using its GameMaker development platform. Developers can publish their games to GX Games directly from GameMaker with a single click. GX Games gives users instant access to over 3,000 games directly from Opera GX. By bringing Opera GX and GameMaker together, the GX Games portal seeks to make creating, sharing and playing games as quick and easy as posting on social media. Even though it's limited to Opera GX audience, the services' early adopters spent over 1.5 million hours playing games in December 2022.
AI-powered News and Content Recommendations Service: Opera News
Opera News is the company's AI-powered personalized news discovery and aggregation service. The service is both featured prominently as part of the company's browsers, and also made available as a standalone app and website. These apps operate under both the Opera News and Apex News brands. By providing AI-powered news and content recommendations, the company has increased both user activity and the amount of time users spend in its online ecosystem.
The company uses its proprietary AI technologies to curate and intelligently recommend news, articles, videos and other online content that may be of interest to its users. Users can conveniently access this content through real-time intelligent ranking, top news and push notification features. Moreover, Opera News utilizes natural language processing and other technologies to quickly process linguistic differences and nuances to assess and recommend online content across different languages and cultures. When using an Opera product powered by the company's AI recommendation engine, people can efficiently discover and share online content that appeals to them.
The company continues to improve Opera News, adding new features and functions for its users, as well as improving the attractiveness of the platform for content creators and publishers. The company launched Opera News Hub in Nigeria and then expanded to additional markets. The Opera News Hub platform enables content creators to self-publish and monetize their content through the company's Opera News channels, which has enabled it to attract increasingly local content. At the same time, the company has sought to increase the number of mainstream news publishers distributing content on the Opera News platform. To enable publishers to build audience loyalty, the company has added features for users to follow specific publishers and receive notifications when they submit new content. Users can also create custom feeds to receive content from their preferred publishers and content categories.
Building upon the success of Opera News, the company rolled out Apex Football in 2021. This website and related apps use the AI technology developed for Opera News, with a filter in place to highlight only the news about a specific vertical, in this case football (soccer). In addition to the filter, Apex Football is given a design aesthetic that gives the apps and website a unique look. In 2022, the company introduced additional sports verticals, including Cricket, Basketball and general sporting news. Furthermore, in 2022, Opera embedded a live score feature into the company's Android browsers allowing users to subscribe and follow their favorite matches and teams from the browser start page.
The company's Opera News user base reached 172 million average MAUs in 2022 across those users that accessed Opera News from Opera browsers and those that accessed it from dedicated Opera News apps or websites. The Opera News apps reached an average of 36 million in MAUs in 2022. In light of the strong adoption of Opera News in emerging markets, in 2021, the company entered into additional markets, including the United States, France and Germany, and the company has seen initial success in these markets in terms of revenue.
Intelligent Online Marketing Platforms: Opera Ads
Opera Ads is the company's in-house advertising platform optimized for serving its owned and operated inventory targeting digital agencies, advertisers and brands to connect and engage directly with Opera users through both programmatic and traditional advertising solutions. The Opera Ads offering is an important part of the company's monetization strategy aimed at growing its average revenue per user (ARPU) and it builds on top of its existing search monetization partnerships with third-party companies, such as Google, and partnerships with other monetization partners, such as Amazon.
The Opera Ads platform was extended in 2021 with the company's audience extension service, which connects with partner inventories via real-time bidding, offering its advertising partners an audience extension and incremental reach for their campaigns. In 2022, Opera Ads platform was the fastest growing contributor to the company's advertising revenue, which surpassed its search revenue for the first time, and outperformed its expectations throughout the year.
Web3 and E-Commerce Initiatives
Web3 Initiatives
In 2018, the company introduced a Crypto Wallet inside its browsers, enabling access to a new generation of blockchain-based Web3 applications. This allows users to interact with these applications, send or receive various kinds of cryptocurrencies to sites and users, as well as identify themselves to sites and hold unique digital items from blockchain-based games. As of December 31, 2022, Opera supports the most relevant blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon and Solana. In addition, the company re-builds its non-custodial Web3 wallet into a standalone SDK, which is embedded into Opera browser applications. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the company had 0.6 million average MAUs of its Web3 wallet across smartphone and PC platforms.
In November 2022, the company introduced DegenKnows, an NFT analysis and exploration tool that helps users seamlessly discover and verify digital collectibles through social signals, on-chain analysis and wallet tracking. DegenKnows API service helps platforms, institutions, communities and other business partners retrieve, manage and analyze both on-chain and social real-time data with deep market insights.
E-commerce Initiatives
The company launched a browser-based cashback offering that provides financial rewards to Opera users for certain online transactions. The Opera cashback rewards program aims to provide Opera's users with an integrated, seamless, non-intrusive cashback experience inside their browser. The cashback service was initially offered in Spain and then rolled out to Polish users in October 2021. Opera cashback features hundreds of shops, including brands, such as PC Componentes, AliExpress, and Shein.
In 2022, the company rolled out Opera cashback to Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Mexico with further plans on expanding into Brazil, where Opera browsers' market share has been consistently growing. In 2023, the company plans to focus on scaling the business, adding web3 based differentiators to the cashback product along with further expansion in Latin America.
In 2022, the company also rolled out Opera VPN Pro, a subscription-based VPN service, white labeled and operated by a leading VPN brand, and integrated payment/subscription options within Opera account, enabling Opera to offer more paid services for its users in the future.
Partners
The company partners with companies that benefit from its online marketing and advertising services, including search engines, e-commerce and travel providers and digital advertising platforms. Through placement of shortcuts, or 'Speed Dials', and advertisements in its browsers and apps, the company has the ability to direct traffic to the websites of both global and local partners that provide services to its users. These companies pay the company either for referring traffic to them or for displaying their advertisements.
Search Providers
The company partners with internet search providers like Google and Yandex and has worked closely with them for over 20 and 15 years, respectively. These partnerships make available best-in-class search technology to the company's users and enhance the visibility of its brand. The company shares the revenue generated by its search partners when its users conduct searches initiated within the URL bar, default search page or search boxes embedded in its PC and mobile browsers.
The company has had a search distribution agreement with Google since 2001. The company entered into its search distribution agreement with Google in 2012 and has extended the term of that agreement until December 31, 2024. Google may also extend the term by an additional 12-month period by providing 30 days written notice to the company. The company has had a search partner agreement with Yandex since 2007. The company entered into its partner agreement with Yandex in 2012. The initial term of this agreement has been extended several times and extends until December 2024. The company's agreements with Google and Yandex are subject to customary events of default, including failure to make payments, material breach, liquidation, as well as other termination trigger events as provided therein.
E-commerce and Online Travel Agencies
The company works closely with large, global e-commerce and online travel agencies, such as Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress, and Booking.com, as well as strong local brands like Flipkart, Lazada and others. The value of these partnerships continues to rise through increased user engagement with such popular services within the company's browsers, as well as its audience extension offering.
The company earns revenue from transactions initiated by its directed users via links provided on its Speed Dial homepage and other advertisements, typically in the form of a defined share of the revenue generated by these service providers.
Digital Advertising Platforms
The company has established relationships with leading digital advertising platforms, such as Google AdSense, AdMob by Google, Meta Audience Network and others.
The company allows these digital advertising platforms to display their advertising demand on its browsers, content apps and websites where it recognizes revenue based on the amounts it is entitled to receive from such advertising partners. The company also sells selected premium advertising placements, such as Roadblock banners, interstitials, videos, sponsored articles and notifications to global and local advertisers.
Content Providers
In addition to monetization partners, the company has formed strong relationships with high profile media companies, while also focusing on regional and local content providers in key markets in Africa, Europe and the United States. These relationships enable the company to obtain comprehensive news and other content that it can make available to users on its platform, provide more publicity for the company's content provider partners and generate revenues through the placement of advertising within its news service. Further, the company is increasingly focused on the creation of exclusive local content through Opera News Hub. The company also analyzes users' behavior to improve the relevance of the news stories and advertisements that it shows to each user based on their preferences.
Marketing and Distribution
The company also partners with device manufacturers and mobile network operators to promote and distribute its products. The company has long-term relationships with device manufacturers to ensure cost-efficient and reliable distribution benefitting both these distribution partners and it. In addition, the company partners with mobile network operators in Africa for joint marketing campaigns. These campaigns promote the data saving features of the company's mobile browsers on its operator partner's network, while providing free or reduced cost browsing to the consumer for a limited time.
Investments
The company's business includes non-controlling investments in other companies.
OPay Limited, or OPay, an investee in which the company holds a 9.5% ownership interest, is a mobile payment fintech company that focuses on emerging markets, with Nigeria and Egypt as initial key markets. OPay provides online and offline payments, and digital wallet services leveraging AI, big data and other fintech innovations, thus helping countries in emerging markets transform into cashless societies.
nHorizon Innovation (Beijing) Software Ltd., or nHorizon, a joint venture in which the company has a 29.1% ownership interest, operates an Opera browser in the People's Republic of China (China or PRC). nHorizon's monetization partners include Baidu, Sogou and others. nHorizon consists of nHorizon Innovation (Beijing) Software Limited and nHorizon Infinite (Beijing) Software Limited.
AB Fjord Bank, or Fjord Bank, an investee in which the company owned an ownership interest of 6.1% as of December 31, 2022, operates as a licensed specialized bank and has launched operations with an online offering which includes fixed deposits and consumer lending business in the Lithuanian market.
Dispositions
On April 21, 2022, the company sold its 19.4% ownership interest in Star Group Interactive Inc. (Star X) to Kunlun Tech Limited.
On March 22, 2022, the company sold its 42.4% ownership interest in NanoCred Cayman Co. Limited (Nanobank).
Product Marketing and Distribution
For the majority of the company's products and services, the main source of marketing is 'word-of-mouth' from its large user base. The trust and reliance that the company's users place in it is a key growth driver of its business, since prospective users that hear positive feedback from their friends and colleagues about the company's products and services are more likely to try them. The company has run influencer marketing campaigns to gain trust and mind-share among key target demographics.
In 2022, organic installs were the company's most important channel for new user acquisition, representing approximately 75% of its new smartphone users. In parallel, the company cooperates with industry partners to promote its products. In 2022, approximately 7% of new smartphone users originated from the company's paid online promotions.
The company's products are available through its official website, www.opera.com, as well as Google Play, Apple's App Store, and other online app marketplaces.
Competition
In the browser space, the company competes with other global browser developers, including companies, such as Google (Chrome), Apple (Safari), Microsoft (Edge) and Samsung that distribute their browsers via proprietary operating systems and devices. From time to time, the company has to compete with smaller, independent browser companies, such as Mozilla Firefox, Brave, Avast, Yandex, DuckDuckGo and UC Web as well for those users who want to choose an alternative browser for their devices in addition to their respective default browsers.
In the advertising space, the company competes with other global internet companies which operate advertising platforms and audience extension products, such as those offered by Meta and Alphabet for both inventory and advertisers.
In the content space, the company has faced significant competition from other internet companies promoting their own content products and services globally, including Google, Apple and Facebook, and traditional media, such as local and global newspapers and magazines.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2022, the company had over 300 active registrations or pending applications for the OPERA, Opera with Red O (both old and new versions) and OPERA SOFTWARE trademarks in over 90 countries, and for its red 'O' logo in over 80 countries. Opera has a patent portfolio that includes more than 20 patents issued in the United States, as well as certain international patent registrations. In addition, as of December 31, 2022, the company had hundreds of registered domain names related to its businesses.
History
Opera Limited was founded in 1995. The company was incorporated in 2018 in the Cayman Islands.
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