The Opera Mobile Store is a platform-independent browser-based application store for mobile-phone owners and a digital application
distribution platform for developers, owned and maintained by Opera Software ASA. Launched and powered by a third-party provider in March, 2011 the Opera Mobile Store was relaunched on a new platform, after acquisition of Handster, a mobile application store platform company, in January 2012. The service allows users to browse and download applications for over 3000 different mobile phone models on Android, Java, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, iOS, and Windows Mobile.
The Opera Mobile Store delivers more than 1 million app downloads a day and is accessible from any mobile phone via a visual bookmark with the OMS logo on Speed Dial or Start Page of Opera Mini or Opera Mobile browsers that run on more than 260 million devices worldwide. The store is also accessible from any other browser, including desktop versions, and on any operating system, from http://apps.opera.com/. The Opera Mobile Store then forwards the user to the country-specific store based on the location information provided by the mobile carrier or ISP.
Opera Mobile Store shortcut displaying on the Opera Mini start page
Over 86% applications for Android powered phones provided by the Opera Mobile Store are free of charge, others require payment. The average free-vs.-paid-apps ratio for all platforms is 70% and 30%, respectively. These applications are generally targeted on a particular category, including games, business applications, social-media apps, e-books, and others.
History
On March 8, 2011, Opera Software announced the launch of Opera Mobile Store powered by third-party provider. On September 19, 2011 Opera Software has acquired mobile application store platform company Handster Inc., which was leading independent applications store for Android market at this time.
Following the acquisition of Handster Opera Software made a major overhaul since the Opera Mobile Store launch. Opera Software announced a revamped Opera Mobile Store with improved distribution and monetization capabilities for developers, and better customization for white-label marketplaces at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 27, 2012. In July 2013, developers can now upload apps to both the Yandex. Store and the Opera Mobile Store simultaneously, as a result of agreements between the two companies.
Number of downloaded applications
As stated in the official Opera Software press-release, by February 27, 2012 Opera Mobile Store reached more than 30 million monthly app store visits and over 45 million monthly app downloads.
Number of apps in the store has tripled over the year 2013, while the number of monthly visitors to the Opera's app distribution platform grew to 75 million in October, 2013.
At the end of Q4 2013 Opera Software announced that it has reached a new milestone — 105 million monthly visitors. That is a 172 % increase in a year since the close of 2012. The top-three countries in 2013 based on the number of Opera Mobile Store users were India, the United States and Indonesia. By the beginning of 2014 Opera's app store started to offer more than 200,000 mobile apps and games across most mobile platforms, that is more than 5 times growth in 2 years.
Opera Mobile Store
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