Opera Software recent report shows the number of active users using its newsreader service has reached well over 100 million monthly. The report shows stats as at November 2017.
The company notes the fast growth the platform has recorded; less than a year ago there were only two million active users on the Opera Newsreader. Right now, the platform boasts of well over 100 million users worldwide.
Opera attributes this fast growth to the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine into the platform. Thus able to preempt the type of news that would better appeal to each individual users, based on their history. Hence, users are sure to get more of the news that interest them, than those they are not the least bit interested in.
The said AI bot learns the users’ online behavior in real-time and able to quickly serve them with news content that are highly targeted. This means news is localized to the user’s location and things they are interested in the most. It also comes in a fashion that is easier and faster to access for the readers.
The service was first introduced in Opera Mini in January, 2017, and has over the months experienced 50-fold growth. The Opera report shows the typical user spends about 40 minutes each day on the Opera Mini browser, and will engage with about 65-81% of the news stories served by the Opera Newsreader.
Good News to the Publishers
Opera says its Newsreaders benefits the publishers a lot as it exposes their articles to the most relevant audience thanks to its AI-engine, which is constantly learning the mobile phone user’s behavior.
“The AI engine is designed to instantly provide personalized and localized content, right at their fingertips. We are thrilled to see such rapid growth both in terms of users and actual usage of the services,” said Jan Standal, the VP Product Marketing and Communication at Opera.
Opera Software to launch dedicated News and Content app
The success the Opera Newsreader has registered has prompted Opera Software to release a dedicated, standalone app just for news and content. The app codenamed, Opera Habari, will give users just news and video content that fits their preferences and will also run on an AI-engine just like the Opera browser.
“Building on the success of Opera Mini, we will continue developing our AI-service to make it one of the leading content discovery platforms in the world. The unique combination of a large user base with our deep technology skills gives Opera a unique position to achieve this goal. We are looking forward to releasing the new app in the near future.”
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