Opera Limited, one of the world’s largest internet consumer brands with hundreds of millions of users worldwide, today announced its unaudited consolidated financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2022.
“Opera’s performance in 2022 is off to a great start, both as it relates to our product portfolio and in terms of monetization and financial results coming in ahead of expectations. As a segment-oriented web browser and content platform provider, we continue to see increased adoption of our products in western markets, where more and more people choose Opera (NASDAQ:OPRA) over default solutions, and we maintain a very strategic and significant footprint amongst monetizable users in emerging markets”, said Co-CEO Song Lin.
“The world, and in particular the situation in Europe, is looking very different today than it did at our last quarterly release, but we find that tailwinds in our business are offsetting the monetary impacts of the war as it relates to Opera. While we are excited about the continued momentum in our business, this naturally fades in importance relative to the grave situation unfolding and the millions of people affected, including among our own staff and their families.”
First quarter and recent business highlights
- Core search and advertising revenue grew 41% year-over-year in the first quarter, driven by the strong ARPU trend of our browser and news user base, as well as leveraging our strong advertiser demand beyond our own inventory through our Opera Ads platform.
- Opera’s average monthly active user base was 339 million MAUs in the quarter; with a continued directional shift towards higher ARPU markets. User growth was the strongest in the Americas, this time led by North America up 15% and South America up 10%, while we continue to focus investments in emerging markets towards users that we believe will be monetizable.
- The Opera GX gaming browser had over 16 million monthly active users across PC and mobile in the first quarter, representing a continued healthy trajectory with 14% sequential growth versus the prior quarter.
- The beta version of the Opera Web3 browser was released as the newest addition to our family of browsers. We also announced support for most major blockchain ecosystems in the Opera wallet.
- We sold our minority stakes in both Nanobank and Star X (formerly known as StarMaker), with the second sale happening post quarter-end. In the aggregate, the two sales represent $211 million of cash proceeds receivable with no contingencies. In addition we held $182 million of cash and marketable securities at the end of Q1, and we continue to hold our 6.44% stake in OPay.
- During the quarter the company repurchased 569 thousand ADSs at an average price of $5.33, for a total spend of $3 million, leaving $47 million remaining under our existing buyback authorization.
“Due to the core revenue generation of our business scaling ahead of expectation, we exceeded the top of our guidance ranges for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter and we are in a position to maintain our prior full-year guidance” said CFO Frode Jacobsen. “Revenues generated from our users located in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine accounted for approximately 10% of our revenue in the past, and it is the strength of our underlying business that offsets the expected decline in this region for the year as a whole.”
For the full year of 2022, Opera expects revenue of $300 million to $310 million, representing a 22% increase at the midpoint, and adjusted EBITDA to be between $50 million and $60 million, or an 18% margin at the midpoint, versus 12% for 2021.
For the second quarter of 2022, Opera expects revenue of $71 million to $74 million, representing 21% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $8 million and $12 million, representing a 14% margin at the midpoint.