In 2017, Opera's annual revenue was $128.9 million, up 20.2% from 2016's $107.29 million; adjusted net profit was $17.796 million, a net loss of $9.226 million from 2016, which not only turned losses into profits, but also Leap-forward growth. Overall, Opera's financial data has grown significantly and has shown good profit margins.
It is worth mentioning that, at the same time of the sale, Bitmain (Bitland) and IDG Capital participated in the private placement of Opera, which undoubtedly reflected the strong confidence of the capital market in the future prospects of Opera.
Bitcoin is the world's No. 1 bitcoin mining machine manufacturer. According to rumors, Bitcoin will work closely with Opera on virtual currency businesses such as digital currency wallets. IDG Capital is the first foreign investment fund to enter China, and it is now in China. After 25 years of hard work, more than 700 companies have invested, and more than 150 companies have successfully exited through IPO or mergers and acquisitions. The strategic investment action of Bitland and IDG Capital has greatly increased the imagination of Opera after listing.
From a year of $9.23 million to a quarterly profit of 9.87 million, the old browser Nirvana rebirth
Born in 1996, Opera is a veritable old browser. Opera has witnessed the development of the Internet industry and has been pursuing breakthroughs that have kept pace with the times. Over the past decade, the Internet and mobile Internet infrastructure has grown rapidly, North America and Europe. Other regions are the most developed regions. At the same time, regions including Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa still have shortcomings in Internet and mobile broadband connections, and many users have limited hardware configurations. In this case, Opera It provides a targeted solution. Opera's leading technology advantage can greatly reduce the bandwidth to give users the fastest browsing experience, which is extremely popular in areas with limited speeds such as network speed and hardware.
Therefore, Opera was also favored by the capital. In 2016, Kunlun Wanwei took the lead in establishing a consortium of investors to acquire Opera Software AS for a 100% stake. The final transaction price was $575 million.
It is worth mentioning that the acquisition of Opera by Kunlun Wanwei Group has given it a whole new vitality. Kunlun Wanwei added precise push news and information services to Opera's original browser search model to increase users' lives. Using frequency and stickiness, Opera becomes an integrated platform-level application integrating search, navigation, content distribution, and social networking. Furthermore, the business model is divided from the original navigation, search engine, software pre-installation, etc., to areas such as advertising cash.
In particular, Kunlun Wanwei added information flow advertising to Opera, and the optimization of the original navigation function not only expanded the income source, but also greatly improved the commercialization value and liquidation potential of its users, and also enabled Opera to quickly turn around.
According to the prospectus, in 2016, Opera's adjusted net loss was $9.226 million. In 2017, Opera not only turned a profit, but also adjusted its net profit to $17.786 million. In the past 2018 In the first quarter, Opera's adjusted net profit was as high as 9.87 million US dollars. In contrast, in the same period of 2017, Opera's adjusted net profit was only 780,000 US dollars.
Opera's turnaround is not only the rebirth of a veteran browser, but also the transformation, upgrade, and organic output of Kunlun Wanwei. According to people familiar with the matter, Kunlun Wanwei is investing and acquiring companies. Most of them are not just financial investment, but strategic investment. Kunlun Wanwei will conduct in-depth research before investing. After investing, it will always control the company's dynamics, give it support to the entire group's ecological resources, and help it complete its comprehensiveness. upgrade.
3.2 billion months of living, occupying absolute advantages in Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia
At present, Opera has grown into a powerful global Internet brand with a large user base.
As of March 31, 2018, Opera's average monthly active users reached 322 million, of which smart phones and PC users reached 239.4 million. In the same period in 2017, Opera's monthly active users were 298 million, of which 202.6 million were Smartphones and PC users.
According to the data provided in the prospectus, users in Africa and Asia use Opera's mobile browser more, while users in developed regions such as North America and Europe prefer Opera's PC-side browser.
Opera currently has three mobile browser products, Opera Mini, Opera for Android and Opera Touch. They use their own features to solve the pain points of users in the region where the Internet infrastructure is not yet complete; and Opera for Computers caters to the needs of high-end user groups. , In addition to free, built-in VPN services, will also pay for, social and other functions to be implanted, providing a powerful entrance for browser consumption and realizing the ecology.
Although the browser is a traditional industry, the Opera browser product's differentiation and innovation with the times have attracted more and more users, and the behavior data and traffic foundation of these users have been given. Opera has more room for imagination in the future.
According to StatCounter's data, Opera’s market share in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia dominates. In these regions, the Internet industry is rapidly growing. With demographic dividends and huge market space, it is also becoming the current Internet giant. The battleground.
The prospectus shows that in the first quarter of 2018, the average MAU (monthly active user) of Opera's PC-side browser reached 57.4 million, which was 42.6 million in the same period of 2017. In addition, the Opera mobile browser reached an average of 2.643 in the first quarter of 2018. Million MAU, of which 182 million are smartphone users, while in the same period in 2017, smartphone users were only 160 million.
Obviously, Opera's mobile browser and PC browser are not only complementary in product form, but also complete the reach of different types of users, as much as possible to cover more people. In a strong technology, multi-functional stimulation , The number of user searches, online hours, and the number of pages displayed are all improving. Opera is bound to become an important world-class traffic portal.
Monthly livelihood jumped by 424%, streaming news Opera News
With the development of technologies such as mobile Internet, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, today's browsers are transforming from web browsing tools to smarter, more interactive products that offer users faster, more convenient, and more personalized. Internet content. In this situation, the tide of streaming media has arrived. As the initial portal for users to access the Internet, Opera will naturally not fall behind.
Opera first launched the Opera News service in January 2017, based on AIRE, using artificial intelligence to distribute and recommend content, and as an integrated feature of Opera's mobile browser.
In January 2018, Opera launched the independent application Opera News app, which constantly improved and optimized the AI platform through the learning of a large user base, and improved various technologies including natural language processing, computer vision, image understanding, machine learning, etc. The decision tree algorithm and deep neural network technology in the engine make personalized content recommendations for each user.
Zhou Yahui, Chairman and CEO of Kunlun Wanwei Group, previously said: 'Opera News ranks among the top news downloads in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania. The growth momentum is rapid. Continue to launch online and other content, and strive to create a global, multilingual, AI-based content distribution platform.
Opera's firm layout based on artificial intelligence and big data in the direction of streaming media quickly gained results. Since the release of Opera News, the number of Opera users has grown tremendously in the first quarter of 2018, and visitors to Opera News have reached the end of the month. 90.2 million, an increase of 891.2% over the same period in the same period of 2017. In addition, for the three months ended March 31, 2018, the average daily usage time of users using Opera browser was nearly 32 minutes, compared with the same period in 2017. 23 minutes increased by 40.4%.
At present, Opera has upgraded to a personalized content distribution platform based on AI and social networking. Based on this, Opera's profit model has also increased the power of information flow services from the initial search, advertising revenue. The industry believes that the current, flow The media is becoming a huge portal for the realization of Internet traffic. As a world-renowned brand with long-term and outstanding innovation capabilities, Opera has a promising future thanks to its dual technology and reputation.
In addition, it is worth noting that the well-publicized Opera's successful listing is also regarded as a complete transformation of Kunlun Wanwei's business and is an important milestone in the strategy of 'building a leading overseas social media and content platform'.