Browser Maker Opera Opens 5th Asia Office, This Time in Singapore

Norway-based browser maker Opera (OSE:OPERA) is today opening its 17th office around the world – and its fifth in Asia. The newest Opera base is in Singapore, which will be led by Fabrizio Caruso, Opera Software’s senior VP for Asia. His role in Singapore will be to develop the company’s advertising business in Asian markets and to work “with operators and brand advertisers to help them reach more mobile internet users”.

In addition, Opera’s new Singapore office will, the company says today, “act as a hub for Opera’s operations in Asia Pacific, including greater China, Korea, and Southeast Asian countries”.

Tove Selnes, Opera’s executive VP of human resources, adds in today’s announcement:

Opera has offices in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan to provide client support and grow our user base. In addition to these four countries in Asia, we have seen huge growth of our operator business in APAC recent years. It makes sense for us to also have an office in Singapore so that we can offer quicker support to our partners. Singapore offers a business-friendly environment, and its strategic geographical location is perfect for Opera a regional base to expand its Asia-Pacific presence.

Opera’s multi-platform browsers now generate more than 60 billion monthly impressions from its 300 million mobile users.

Just last month, Opera switched its Android-based Opera browser (pictured above) to the webkit rendering engine – as used by Safari and Chrome – so as to keep pace with its OS-based rivals.

Opera is up against a lot of Asian rivals – or, more specifically, China-made browsers – in this region, such as Tencent’s One Browser and UCWeb’s UC Browser, which has over 400 million global users.

Nonetheless, Opera is doing well with features like its data-saving capabilities in the Opera Mini browser for both feature phones and smartphones. Out of the top five countries for Opera Mini users in the world, three of them are in Asia.