Last week, Opera announced that Nigerian users of its popular Opera Mini browser have benefited from over 3.76 terabytes of free data – the equivalent of about N5 billion in 2023 alone. It’s a good time to look at how the company accomplished this feat, and how Nigerian users are profiting from using Opera Mini.
Opera and Africa’s digital divide
Opera was among the first tech companies to enter the African market, and has a long history of working to bring more people online. Back in 2017, the company pledged to invest over $100M to support digitalization across the African continent, which it has already achieved. Free data campaigns have been a key cog of that initiative – they allow users access to up to 1.5GB of free data each month when browsing with Opera Mini on a partnered telco network, such as Airtel or MTN. Not limited to just Nigeria, Opera’s free data campaigns have to date benefitted over 40 million users in six countries across the continent.
Opera’s objective has been to help close the digital divide, which is an improving but still prevalent issue in Nigeria and other African countries. Nigeria, for example, has a total population of over 230 million, but only 103 million Nigerians have access to the internet. This means that the internet penetration rate of the most populous black nation is only 45.5 percent. This is in large part because the internet remains unaffordable for many in Nigeria, a country in which around 60% of the population is below the poverty line. Many subsist on a monthly salary as low as 90,000 NGN, in which case a monthly data package of 20GB would consume 12% of their income.
Tailored-for-the-market solutions
When Opera entered the African market, the company began by listening to the needs of local mobile users and designing a platform that could address them. The result was Opera Mini, which has more than 1 billion downloads worldwide. Created to address the issue of high data costs, Opera Mini features unique data compression technology that reduces data usage by up to 90 percent. When paired with the company’s free data campaigns – which grant users up to 1.5GB of free data per month – Opera Mini enables users to browse up to 10 times longer when compared to other browsers.
Besides data-saving capabilities and campaigns, Opera Mini also comes with features designed to appeal to the wants and needs of African users. A built-in Live Scores feature – which enables users to follow over 8,000 teams from around the world, including global favorites from the Premier League, Champions League, and beyond – is one such example. With a live scoreboard and Live Match Alerts, football fans can always stay updated regarding kickoff times, goals, red cards, penalties, the full-time result, and more.
The company has also striven to address the fact that many African users share a device, making privacy an even more urgent issue. After 97% of users in Nigeria requested enhanced privacy features, the company recently released an update to Opera Mini that comes with Private Downloads. That means all downloads go into PIN-protected folders, ensuring that users’ personal documents and media remain private.
In addition to the free daily data, Opera Mini offers Nigerian mobile users a more personal, private, and cost-effective browsing experience.
Download Opera Mini and experience faster, more affordable internet.
