Historically, the cost of accessing the internet across Africa has been high, though these days the situation has improved, but its penetration rate is still quite low. There is still a huge population across the continent who cannot still access internet. It is for that reason the (former Norwegian owned) Chinese consortium owned software company Opera’s mobile browser Opera Mini became quite popular. More recently the company launched Opera News, an app that aggregates news content from various online publishers, and the app now tops the charts in news app downloads across the continent.
The Opera News app has officially cross the five million downloads marks across Africa; the app achieved this feet over the Q1 of 2018. Making the app, the top news app in Africa, and perhaps the fastest growing Opera product for the year 2018.
The app is extremely useful for people who like to be in the know, but don’t want the hustle of visiting each news site. Plus doing that will necessitate you having to type in the URL for each news site, or doing it the first time then having to bookmark them. With Opera News app, it aggregates all the news from your favorite top apps among other sites. So it act like a mall, with all you can shop under one roof.
“Opera News is now the number one news and video app in Africa, topping the download charts in all the key markets. Over the coming year, the way people consume news and videos will change completely. We are proud to lead this transformation with Opera News,” said Jorgen Arnesen, the Global Head of Marketing and Distribution at Opera.
Opera has partnered with Safaricom to give Kenyans free mobile data
In celebration of its 5 million downloads mark in Africa, Opera has struck a deal with Kenya’s leading telecom. As it works out, if you are already a user of the Opera News app, you can send out a link invite to your family and friends who don’t yet have the app. If they use your link to go to their respective app store and install the app, you get 35MB for free. Additionally, whenever the person you invited, invite another person, you will get 5MB. The 35MB and 5MB respectively happens every time a new person invited from the (chained) invite link is used.
Any user who downloads the app for the first time will get 15MB upon its installation. The more friends use your invite link (or a chain from it) you get free mobile data on Safaricom.
“The reward system in Opera News is easy. The more friends and family that download Opera News from your invitation, the more data you will earn,” adds Arnesen. “We are excited to partner up with Safaricom, as they are one of the biggest and most disruptive companies in Africa.”
