Maker of Opera Browser Looking for Strategic Partner, Buyout on the Cards

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Opera Mobile Store Once upon a time Opera mini was another name for mobile browser. Today, the once popular mobile internet browser and its siblings like the full fledged Opera Mobile Browser that lacked the famed data compression credentials of Opera mini don’t account for much as far as mobile browser market-share goes. According to the most recent statistics from Net Applications, Opera mini accounted for just 6% of the mobile browser market-share. Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari on iOS took the lion’s share with 33.2% and 42.4% market-share respectively. On the desktop front, things weren’t any different with Opera accounting for just 1.3% of browser usage in the month of July.

Just as its usage numbers on both the desktop and mobile have spiraled down over the last few years, so have the parent company’s overall fortunes. Opera was last week forced to revise down its revenue guidance by about 5% in the wake of expected shortfalls in revenues from its mobile advertising division. 2015 revenues are expected to increase to the $600-618 million region when compared to last year’s $480.8 million but are short of the earlier stated guidance of $630-6550 million.

As a result, the company’s board has “in response to strategic interest from a number of parties… initiated a process to evaluate and consider strategic alternatives for the Company, with the objective of further enhancing shareholder value.”

More details about Opera’s financials are expected to be disclosed on August 12th when the company releases its Q2 2015 results.