In recognition of the Asia-Pacific region as the “next big thing”, Opera Software ASA has shifted its focus from European markets to make its presence known in such markets as the Philippines. The move, said to be very timely, is best reflected not only in forming partnerships with existing service providers to utilize Opera, but in the putting more Opera people in the ground, said Opera CEO Lars Boilesen in an exclusive interview with Media G8way Corp. “The potential of the Philippines is big, so we’re serious about making it big (here),” Boilesen said. “Opera has a big future in emerging markets, so we have great plans to be (here).” Already, the company hired Marlon C. Corpuz in January 2011 as its dedicated sales manager to “reinforce its commitment to the Philippine market”. This is in line with the company’s belief that “a local team managing local issues work better than having people in the ground who do not know the (contexts) to move in,” Boilesen said. Without disclosing the actual investment put into targeting the APAC market, Boilesen stressed that Opera’s investment “may be best seen in our focus to put more people on the ground,” he said. “We are hiring local people to respond to local requirements.” Opera actually started targeting the APAC region since 2009, with the market from Vietnam down to New Zealand currently composing around 25% of global Opera Mini user base. There are, however, an estimated over 500 million active subscribers across APAC telcos, with over 50% of them having mobile-Internet-capable phones, so that “there’s a big room to grow (for Opera),” Boilesen said. In the Philippines, Opera already has over one million mobile Internet users, growing from only approximately 200,000 a year ago. There are, nonetheless, over 18 million featurephone users for Opera telco partner Smart Communications Inc. alone, so a big market share remains untapped. In an earlier interview, Opera Philippines’ senior sales manager Corpuz noted that many Filipinos continue to hold the misconception that only smartphones can conveniently access the Internet, so that similarly Internet-capable featurephone are not used for going online. Also, for those aware of the Internet capability of their mobile phones, many Internet users are accustomed to their phones’ native browsers, even though they cost more to use. “The main challenge now is to motivate and convert mobile Internet users to use Opera Mini,” Corpuz said. Now with over 121 million users worldwide, the Opera Mini mobile Web browser is known for its compression technology, which decreases the size of webpages by up to 90% before sending them to the phone. This results in faster page loading, which lowers data costs when users access the Web on a mobile network. In the Philippines, over 3,000 mobile device models – from basic feature phones to high-end smartphones and tablets – can benefit from Opera’s solution. More information at opera.com.
