State of the Opera: Q3 2009

November 16, 2009 · by Haavard

Financial results time again. The third quarter results for 2009 are in. The overall revenue growth is only 8% for the quarter, but 38% for the first 3 quarters of 2009 compared to 2008. Currency/exchange rates are not in Opera's favour compared to last year, but this will probably normalize over time.

Overall revenue up 8% since Q3 2008 (+38% since the first 3 months of 2008)
We have invested a lot of money in things like the new Opera Mini and Mobile, so we reported our first small loss for a long time
Number of desktop users is nearly 45 million, up 45% since Q3 2Q08 (or up 130% since Q3 2007)
Desktop revenue is up 53% compared to the same quarter last year
The Opera Mini user count is up 150% since Q3 2009, and a massive 900% since Q3 2007
Opera now has about 760 employees in 10+ countries

Non-recurring engineering (NRE) revenue is dropping a lot, but that is because we are trying to spend less time adapting Opera for each customer by standardizing our products and making them easier to cuztomize. This means that we can focus on license income and revenue sharing, which is much more scalable as a business model (minimizing NRE means that we can generate even more revenue per employee).

Even though we are only noticing the world financial crisis now, we do have a lot of cash, and Opera is not in any sort of danger as far as I can tell. According to the presentation, we have more contracts coming up in the near future, and the desktop version is seeing some nice growth.

The outlook for the last quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010 is still cautious, but profits are expected to increase going into the second half of 2010.

Readers' comments 15

Left under the original article, as archived.

thobiMonday, November 16, 2009 10:17:49 AM
nice
good job!
Mağruf ÇolakoğluMonday, November 16, 2009 10:54:01 AM
Good job
tomassplatchMonday, November 16, 2009 11:19:44 AM
"Focusing more and more on desktop and operators."
With reducing NRE, I wonder what does this mean to Opera Mobile.
endless loveMonday, November 16, 2009 12:09:37 PM
HaavardMonday, November 16, 2009 12:17:59 PM
It means the same for Opera Mobile as it does for everything else.
netwolfMonday, November 16, 2009 12:59:49 PM
Thank you for the insight, looks promising
btw: how do you count the number of users?
HaavardMonday, November 16, 2009 1:19:05 PM
User numbers can be calculated based on browsers checking automatically for updates.
Tomas ThorsteinssonMonday, November 16, 2009 1:25:20 PM
So if you have several installations you are counted as several users?
FavMonday, November 16, 2009 1:39:14 PM
Originally posted by haavard:

User numbers can be calculated based on browsers checking automatically for updates.

I beleive he asked on how you count, but not how it can be counted.
TamilMonday, November 16, 2009 2:43:14 PM
http://files.myopera.com/Tamil/Smilies/ThumbsUp.gif -
scaRFhoggMonday, November 16, 2009 7:21:54 PM
Originally posted by DjiXas:

I beleive he asked on how you count, but not how it can be counted.

I believe you're splitting hairs and haavard already answered the question - not for the first time, btw.
TeoMonday, November 16, 2009 9:41:37 PM
That's fantastic news, keep up the good work.
Daniel HendrycksMonday, November 16, 2009 11:49:56 PM
FavTuesday, November 17, 2009 9:57:08 AM
Originally posted by scaRFhogg:

I believe you're splitting hairs and haavard already answered the question - not for the first time, btw.

Well, I am not very active here, my mistake, maybe. I've seen some time ago haavard said something very similar, but also that "it can be done" and not "we do".
Cutting SpoonTuesday, December 1, 2009 11:19:22 PM
Yeah, I was there for that too. Counting methods are never perfect, but real traffic results for Turbo showed the value of that addition; also Opera will soon have uptime statistics for Unite.

Per the financial results, I am not surprised at a small loss given the significant hardware investments and new hires in recent time. However this should rapidly pay off in new users and contracts.

Pushing widgets will also serve to increase revenue quickly, netbook makers could have the same extra apps on Windows/Linux/Android. Car makers can have dashboard widgets based on Win98-Win7, Unix or Linux, and change the OS without rebuilding the interface. Such technology would also fit the Apple image, (even if they cheat and copy it themselves) by promising identical apps on all Apple hardware.

At this point, Opera has developed nearly enough technology to power a full operating system suite (backed by some free stuff from Linux of course). More realistically, it would be easy to license their products for use in a content-delivery platform run by some other company. Think "Steam", "iTunes", "Stardock", etc., but small startups could have the same potential with a fraction of the investment.

Welcome to the Future?