Web Browsers: Opera Getting Started in Mobile Payment?
- Opera Web browser vendor has announced its intention to get started in payments. Rather than building a dedicated infrastructure, Opera Software is considering partnerships with specialised companies lacking substantial user databases such as its own. Indeed, Opera Software deems that the required technologies (NFC, geolocation, logistics, etc.) are not yet ready.
- This ambition results from the dazzling increase in the number of its Internet users: Opera Desktop (PC) went from 30 million active users beginning 2011 to 55 million in the end of April.
- Opera’s success partly relies on the popularity of its mobile version, Opera Mini. All versions taken together, Opera counts 200 million users. To want a share in mobile payment is then logical.
- Opera software can be downloaded for free but its source code remains proprietary: a sine qua non condition for the Norwegian vendor’s long term profitability.