Opera News sets a new record with 200 million users

Users grew 28% year-over-year driven by increased engagement from the Opera News Hub platform and light version of the app

OSLO, Norway, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Opera (NASDAQ: OPRA), one of the world’s leading browser providers and platforms in the field of integrated AI-driven digital content, today announced that its Opera News service now has more than 200 million monthly active users in May, a 28 percent increase year over year.

“This is an important milestone for us. It clearly highlights our position as one of the largest AI-driven news platforms in the world, yet there is still a tremendous untapped potential for our unique news service, with more than a billion internet users in our key markets.” said Song Lin, COO of Opera.

The accelerating user growth for Opera News is mainly driven by three important factors: the expansion of Opera News Hub beyond Nigeria to Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa and Egypt; the launch of Opera News Lite, a downsized version of the Opera News application that enables people with new ways to access the Opera News service; and Opera News became a critical information source during the Coronavirus outbreak across both Africa and South Asia.

Opera News is based on an AI platform which uses insights from Opera’s massive user base and relies on technologies including natural language processing, computer vision, and image understanding to process content, as well as machine learning technology to recommend personalized content to each individual user. It was launched in January 2017 as an integrated feature of Opera’s mobile browsers.

The standalone Opera News app was launched a year later becoming the first news app developed with a focus on Africa and Southast Asia. Opera News Hub is an online editorial platform focused on empowering local content creation. It was initially launched in November 2019. Each day tens of thousands of content creators and journalists of the Opera News Hub work on and publish stories and videos that matter to their local audiences. This makes Opera News a unique platform relevant on each of the markets it is present in.

About Opera:
Opera is a global web innovator. Opera’s browsers, news products and fintech solutions are the trusted choice of more than 360 million people worldwide. Opera is headquartered in Oslo, Norway and listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange (OPRA).

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