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OPay Sounds Positive as Platform Processed $2 Billion in Transactions In December 2020     |     Opera launches Hype in Kenya     |     Opera Founded Startup OPay Raises $50M For Mobile Finance in Nigeria     |    
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OPay Sounds Positive as Platform Processed $2 Billion in Transactions In December 2020

March 1, 2021
Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Opera, Frode Jacobsen

Smarting from the challenges of Covid-19 and run-ins with some government regulations in some countries, Opera, the software company that owns the widely-used Opera browser and content platform, Opera News and other companies such as fintech platform OPay, has released its results for the fourth quarter of 2020 showing strong results for the quarter with $50.4 million in revenue. That’s an increase of 19% from Q3 when its revenue was $42.4 million. Most of this growth was driven by its search and advertising business which brought in revenue of $48.9m. It has been able to monetize its platform even more because it is growing its users at a breakneck pace – Opera says it added 29 million users in 2020.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Opera, Frode Jacobsen
Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Opera, Frode Jacobsen

The  Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Opera, Frode Jacobsen, said that “OPay’s revenue is increasing quite rapidly while the company is able to achieve profits right around breakeven despite the growth. We expect this growth to continue as OPay continues to scale in Nigeria and expands to an additional country in Africa.”

Read also:Opera launches Hype in Kenya

Opera owns 13.1% of the fintech startup, OPay and as such, it reports on that investment in its earnings report. According to that report, “Other items of note include…$8 million increase in the book value of our preference shares in Starmaker and OPay.”

It also says that OPay continues to grow at a massive scale. In Q3 2020, we reported Opera’s claim that OPay processed a gross transaction value of $1.4 billion in the month of October. As we stated in that report, there is no independent way to verify those numbers. The company launched Opera GX, a browser which it says it built specifically with gaming in mind. It has proved popular with gamers with over 7 million users. This sort of reach means it can charge advertisers more, as that revenue stream is up from $19m in Q3 to $23m in Q4. While its existing income streams are impressive, the company will be adding new revenue streams with interesting new products and features. One of those is a digital wallet called Dify.

Read also:Thndr, Egyptian Fintech Startup Helps Users to Trade Mutual Funds

Opera’s Co-CEO Ling Son said that the company announced the launch of Dify, its new digital wallet that will fully integrate into its browser. “What this means is that online shopping is about to become a lot more convenient for Opera browser users”

Opera will push adoption for this product by providing cash back incentives to users who shop from the 300 merchants that are already part of the program. Online payments can sometimes have a layer of complexity due to required security measures, but an integrated wallet could, in theory, be easier to use. Opera believes Dify is a “significant” product; and according to the numbers it reports for Opera news, Dify already has a large pool of users. Opera News is huge in Africa and the company says that the continent contributes a huge chunk to its estimated 200 million users in emerging markets. At the end of 2020, Opera news expanded to more “developed” markets.

While the company has not shared the numbers of OPay, it says that “the early results have been promising.” According to Lin Song, “we’re getting right now well-positioned to scale. While there will be meaningful upfront and marketing costs and in our user acquisition, we will broaden our ecosystem in developed markets with a larger and profitable content business and with a major potential impact on our revenue growth this year.”

Read also:OPay Eyes North Africa Buoyed by Nigeria Success

OPay’s market share in Nigeria according to NIBSS is around 70% even though this might not be a full reflection of OPay’s transaction value. OPay says it processed a gross transaction value of $2 billion in December alone, a 43% jump in two months. With its expansion to another African country and the prospect of more customers, it will be more interesting to see what its reported numbers will be by the end of Q1 2021.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Opera launches Hype in Kenya

February 25, 2021
Charles Hamel, Product Lead for Hype

Global media outfit, Opera has launched its new dedicated chat service built into the popular Opera Mini browser in Kenya. Hype is the first African inspired chat service built into a mobile browser. It will first launch in Africa, where Opera has nearly 150M MAU, with Kenya as the pilot market. Opera hopes to reimagine the chat experience, with content sharing as a key feature; Opera Mini, with more than 100M users worldwide, becomes the world’s first mobile browser with an integrated chat service.

Charles Hamel, Product Lead for Hype
Charles Hamel, Product Lead for Hype at Opera

Today, Opera the Norwegian browser developer is announcing the launch of its new dedicated chat service Hype, built into mobile web browser Opera Mini. With the introduction of Hype in the Opera Mini browser, Opera is rethinking the concept of mobile browsers providing its users with a personalized, engaging browsing experience that enables seamless surfing, chatting and sharing content– without compromising speed or driving increased data consumption.

Read also:Will Technology Reinvent ‘the New Normal’ in 2021?

Speaking on the importance of the new chat service, Charles Hamel, Product Lead for Hype said that “chat services and browsers are apps people use every day and feel very personal about,” “With the integration of Hype in Opera Mini, we are not only rethinking what a chat service should be like in 2021, but also changing the very definition of what a mobile browser should be.”

Hype is launching first in Kenya as a pilot market, where starting today, users will be able to easily set up their Hype account and start chatting with secure end-to-end encryption. This launch is a facet of Opera’s emphasis on investing and growing its digital ecosystem in Africa, with the goal of bringing more people online; since 2018, Opera has grown its user base in Africa by 40%.

Read also:Three Cybersecurity Resolutions for Businesses in 2021

The introduction of Hype in Kenya is part of Opera’s Africa First business strategy, adopted three years ago by the Norwegian company. This strategy consists of four main pillars: 1) Develop products with African consumers in mind; 2) Invest and grow Opera’s digital ecosystem in the African region to bring more people online; 3) Partner with leading global and regional companies; and 4) Employ and collaborate with African colleagues and stakeholders.

“Hype was developed first and foremost with African consumers in mind. Today, 40% of the Kenyan population has access to smartphones, with younger generations dominating as 75% of their 47 million inhabitants are under 30 years old,” said Hamel. “With such early adopter demographics at play, there is massive potential for the growth of Hype in Kenya. On top of that, we are also partnering with the leading telecommunication carriers in the country, offering daily free browsing to all Opera Mini users. We believe the combination of these factors will lead to the rapid adoption of Hype in the country.”

This announcement follows similar browser innovation from Opera, which was the first to integrate messenger services as part of their PC browser, in 2019. Today, its more than 80 million users enjoy the integration of services such as Facebook messenger, Telegram, Whatsapp, Instagram and Twitter.

Read also:FairMoney, Nigerian-Based fintech Expands Operations to India

The way people communicate is constantly evolving. Today, new generations are relying on new formats like memes and stickers to express themselves, often relating to pop culture references and internet content they find. To make this easier and fun, Hype brings WebSnap, a feature previously known from the Opera desktop browser that allows users to take snapshots from the web.

Once a websnap is captured, users can edit it by adding colors, text, and emojis, making it fun and entertaining before sharing with others. WebSnap also allows users to smoothly share the link of the original website from which they took their snaps. This comes in handy as users no longer need to copy links from websites and switch between apps to share the content they want.

Hype is the first African inspired chat service built into a mobile browser. It offers its users a series of stickers created by Kenyan artists Brian Omolo and Lulu Kitololo. These unique collections of stickers reflect everyday expressions used by Kenyans to provide users with a more engaging experience when communicating with others.

Read also:FairMoney, Nigerian-Based fintech Expands Operations to India

“We are extremely happy to celebrate African culture with Hype and we are very excited with the end result and the collaboration we had with Brian and Lulu.” said Hamel. “These unique stickers with original designs are something we are very proud of at Opera as we become the first major browser to integrate real African art and pop culture into our products.”

Current messaging services were created almost a decade ago, and none of these has ever focused on having such collaboration with local artists to make online conversations more engaging. This unique offer from Hype stands out from other chat services and enables Kenyans with the ability to express themselves more accurately when using chat apps. The latest population census in Kenya, published in 2019, reported that the country is strongly youthful. Of Kenya’s 47 million inhabitants, 75% are less than 30 years old, with children and adolescents representing 63% of the total population.

“Hype was developed first and foremost with African consumers in mind. Today, 40% of the Kenyan population has access to smartphones, with younger generations becoming early adopters of technology,” said Hamel. “With such demographics, there is massive potential for the growth of Hype in Kenya. On top of that, we are also partnering with Safaricom and Airtel, the leading carriers in the country, offering free daily browsing to all Opera Mini users. We believe the combination of these factors will lead to the rapid adoption of Hype in the country.”

Read also:Morocco, Senegal to Increase Cooperation in Business, Research

In Q4-2020, the Opera user base reached 380 million monthly active users (“MAU’s”) worldwide, with nearly 150 million MAUs based in Africa. Since the announcement of Opera’s Africa First strategy in Q1-2018, Opera has grown its user base by 40% in the African region. This rapid growth in the region gives Opera a unique position to scale its digital ecosystem infrastructure and leverage its brand awareness and recognition. Opera also gives more value to its users there by introducing new products and features that truly address the needs of its users locally.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Opera Founded Startup OPay Raises $50M For Mobile Finance in Nigeria

July 10, 2019
OPay

OPay is just a year old in Nigeria, but the startup is already making waves. Nigerian road users would be familiar with the green livery motorbike hailing startup ORide, which is a part of the OPay business. Founded by Norwegian browser company Opera, OPay, the Africa-focused mobile payments startup has raised $50 million in new funding. 

OPay
 

A Look At The Funding

  • A large chunk of the investment came from investors including Sequoia China, IDG Capital, and Source Code Capital. Opera also joined the round in the payments venture it created.
  • OPay intends to use the capital (which wasn’t given a stage designation) primarily to grow its digital finance business in Nigeria — Africa’s most populous nation and largest economy.
  • OPay will also support Opera’s growing commercial network in Nigeria, including its motorcycle ride-hail app ORide and OFood delivery service.
  • Opera founded Opay in 2018 on the popularity of its internet search engine. Opera’s web-browser has ranked number two in usage in Africa, after Chrome, the last four years.

The Startup’s Statistics

  • On the payments side, OPay in Nigeria has scaled to 40,000 active agents and $5 million in transaction volume in 10 months.
  • The $50 million investment in OPay is more than just another big round in Africa. It has significance for the continent’s tech-ecosystem on multiple levels.
  • To start, OPay’s raise tracks greater influence in African tech from China — whose engagement with African startups has been light compared to China’s deal-making on infrastructure and commodities. OPay founder Opera was acquired in 2016 for $600 million by a consortium of Chinese investors, led by current Opera CEO Yahui Zhou.
  • The majority of the investment for OPay’s raise comes from Chinese funds and sources, including Source Code Capital, Sequoia China, and GSR Ventures. There’s not a lot of statistical data on the value of Chinese VC investment in Africa, but a large portion of $50 million to a fintech venture stands out.

See Also: Nigeria: Ride-Hailing Startup MAX.ng Raises $7M Round To Go Electric 

This New Investment May Mean A Major Shift For Nigerian Digital Payments Startups

  • OPay’s VC haul also has significance vis-a-vis digital-finance in Nigeria. In tandem with other trends, it could support the shift of Nigeria surpassing Kenya as Africa’s digital payments leader. For years Kenya has outpaced Nigeria in P2P digital payments volumes and digital financial inclusion, largely due to the rapid adoption of mobile-money products, such as Safaricom’s M-Pesa.
  • Some of this is due in part to Nigeria’s Central Bank limiting the ability of non-banks (including telcos) to offer mobile payment services. The CBN eased many of those restrictions earlier this year. This opens the door for mobile-operators like MTN, with the largest phone network in Nigeria, to offer mobile-money products. In addition to fintech regulatory improvements, there’s been a gradual increase in VC flowing to Nigerian payment ventures.
  • The country’s leading digital payment company, Paga, raised $10 million in 2018 to further expand its customer base that now tallies 13 million. OPay’s $50 million backed commitment to grow mobile money in Nigeria should provide another big boost to digital-finance adoption across the country’s 190 million people.
  • And not to be overlooked is how OPay’s capital raise moves Opera toward becoming a multi-service commercial internet platform in Africa. Part of the $50 million investment includes diversifying country and product offerings. “Geographic expansion of OPay and other services is a key part of our plans,” Opera CEO Yahui Zhou told TechCrunch via email.

This could place OPay and its Opera supported the suite of products on a competitive footing with other ride-hail, food-delivery, and payments startups across the continent. It could also mean competition between Opera and Africa’s largest multi-service internet company, e-commerce unicorn Jumia.

 

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.

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