Opera acquires Latin American app discovery service Bemobi

Scandinavian software giant Opera has acquired Bemobi, a Latin-American app discovery service.

According to a press release sent to Memeburn, Bemobi operates on a “Netflix-style” subscription service for premium Android apps. By subscribing to the service, users apparently get unlimited use of premium mobile apps for a small weekly fee. Users pay for this service through their mobile operator billing systems, making the service highly effective in emerging markets, where credit-card and debit-card penetration is low.

According to the press release, the idea behind the acquisition is to use Opera’s global footprint to take Bemobi global. The company says that its “existing carrier and handset manufacturer relationships and app-distribution capabilities, allows Opera to bring innovative app-discovery and monetization services across the globe and position Opera as the global leader in this space”.

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“Opera has expanded rapidly in the mobile-app ecosystem, and our goal is to innovate within this space in a manner that benefits everyone. Bemobi is a natural fit for Opera in this direction,” says Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “This acquisition brings an added dimension to our app-discovery services, with a new monetization model that has proven to work well in our core markets,” adds Boilesen.

“Bemobi plans to expand globally, leveraging Opera’s strategic assets by building on the early success of its subscription-based, app-discovery service in Latin America,” says Pedro Ripper, CEO, Bemobi.

The acquisition will be completed in Q3 2015. Pedro Ripper will continue as CEO of Bemobi.