Opera Acquires Bemobi, A Netflix-Like Subscription Service For Premium Apps
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
The Bemobi deal is the second services acquisition Opera announced in 2015: months after buying SurfEasy to add VPN to its browser (SurfEasy VPN purchase), it is now picking up a Netflix-style subscription storefront for premium apps.
Together with Opera Max's growing footprint — from compressing YouTube and Netflix video to later pre-install deals across 14 OEM handsets — the acquisition shows Opera assembling a portfolio of mobile consumer services well before the $1.2B buyout offer from a Chinese consortium put a headline price on that strategy.
First-order effects
- Opera gains a recurring-revenue consumer subscription business in premium apps, adding a second paid-service line alongside the VPN assets it acquired via SurfEasy.
- Bemobi's catalog and billing infrastructure now sit inside Opera's product group, giving the company an owned subscription vehicle rather than a partnership dependency.
Second-order effects
- Bemobi's app subscriptions are a natural bundle candidate for Opera Max's OEM pre-install channel, letting handset partners ship a data-saver plus paid-app package on emerging-market phones.
- Rival browser and mobile-utility makers face pressure to match the services-bundling playbook — content, security, data savings — rather than compete on the browser alone.
Third-order effects
- If the accumulation continues, Opera's valuation rests less on browser share than on a stack of subscription and utility services — the logic a consortium later priced at $1.2B.
- The pattern points toward browser vendors consolidating into mobile-services platforms, where app-subscription aggregators become standard portfolio pieces in emerging markets.
The trend: Browser makers are remaking themselves as mobile consumer-services platforms through serial acquisitions of VPN, data-savings, and app-subscription businesses.