San Mateo, USA and Barcelona, Spain – February 27, 2012
Opera Software today announced a revamped Opera Mobile Store at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with better distribution and monetization capabilities for developers, and better customization for white-label marketplaces.
The Opera Mobile Store is based on the app store technology of Handster, acquired by Opera in September 2011, and also comes with an improved user interface that makes it easier to discover and download new apps.
The Opera Mobile Store is accessible to more than 160 million users of Opera’s Mini and Mobile browsers through a Speed Dial link on the browser start page. Armed with more than 55,000 apps, the Opera Mobile Store is the fifth-largest mobile app store in the world offering free and paid apps on most devices and platforms, including Android, Java, Symbian, BlackBerry and iOS.
This widening reach will give app developers an avenue to distribute and monetize their apps on all platforms and geographies where the store has a strong presence. Sign-up for developers is easy. Visit http://publishers.mobilestore.opera.com/ to get started.
The Opera Mobile Store is also offering more customization features for carriers and OEMs who want to set up their co-branded or white-labeled app stores using the Opera Mobile Store platform. The store will provide carrier billing integration with the Opera Payment Exchange in the near future.
Here are some latest growth numbers for the Opera Mobile Store:
- More than 30 million monthly app store visits
- Page views per user increased 63 percent over last year (now close to 5 page views per user)
- Time spent on site increased 199 percent over last year with now over 4 minutes per visit 130 million monthly page views
- More than 45 million monthly app downloads
- Average daily downloads per unique visitor jumped 101 percent compared to last year
For a demo of the new and improved Opera Mobile Store, visit the Opera Software booth at Mobile World Congress at Hall 1, Booth C44. We will also be at the WIPJam developer event on March 1 at MWC.