- Opera Mini, with more than 100M users worldwide, becomes the world’s first mobile browser with an integrated chat service.
- With Hype, Opera reimagines the chat experience, with content sharing as a key feature.
- Hype will first launch in Africa, where Opera has nearly 150M MAU, with Kenya as the pilot market
February 23, 2021: Today, Opera (NASDAQ: OPRA) is announcing the launch of its new dedicated chat service Hype, built into mobile web browser Opera Mini. With the introduction of Hype, Opera is rethinking the concept of mobile browsers, providing users with a personalized, engaging browsing experience that enables seamless surfing, sharing and communication – without compromising speed or driving increased data consumption.
Opera Mini boasts more than 100M users worldwide and is one of the most widely used mobile browsers in emerging markets, where populations are largely mobile-first and reliant on paid data plans. With features like Data Compression, Offline File Sharing, and built-in Ad-blocker, the app saves users roughly 90% on data use and enables safe, fast browsing where unlimited data isn’t the norm. By integrating chat functionality, Opera Mini users can now browse, chat and seamlessly share content – a key use case within messaging services – within a single, data-saving app.
“Chat services and browsers are apps people use every day and feel very personal about,” said Charles Hamel, Product Lead for Hype. “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%.
“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 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.”
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.
Share online content in a snap
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.
Designed in collaboration with local artists
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.
“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 a 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.
About Opera Mini
Launched in 2006, Opera Mini is a small, fast and powerful browser. It comes with unique features such as Data Compression, Offline File Sharing, and built-in Ad-blocker. Opera Mini also enables access to free ebooks through the Worldreader speed dial, and the music catalogue of the Kenyan music-streaming service, Mdundo, allowing users to stream or download music through the Opera Mini browser.
Today, Opera Mini is used by more than 100 million MAUs who chose it over using the pre-installed browsers on Android mobile devices. Opera Mini has a 4.4 star rating on Google Play and has been reviewed by more than six million people worldwide.
About Opera
Opera is a leading global internet brand with an engaged and growing base of over 380 million MAUs. Building on over 20 years of innovation, starting with our browser products, we are increasingly leveraging our brand as well as our massive and highly active user base in order to expand our offerings and our business. Today, we offer users across Europe, Africa and Asia a range of products and services that include our PC and mobile browsers as well as our AI-powered news reader, Opera News, and our app-based fintech solutions.