Opera Ltd Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call

Thank you for joining us. This morning, I am joined by our co-CEO, Song Lin; and our CFO, Frode Jacobsen. Before I hand over the call to Song Lin, I would like to remind you that some of the statements that we make today regarding our business, operations and financial performance may be considered forward-looking. Such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially, please refer to the safe harbor statement in our earnings press release as well as our annual report on Form 20-F, including the risk factors. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. During this call, we will present both IFRS and non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of non-IFRS to IFRS measures is included in today's earnings press release, which is distributed and available to the public through our Investor Relations website located at investor.opera.com. Our comments will be on year-over-year comparisons unless we state otherwise. And with that, let me turn the call over to our co-CEO, Song Lin, who will cover our second quarter operational highlights and strategy; and then Frode Jacobsen, who will discuss our financials and expectations going forward. Song?

Thank you, Matt, and everyone else for joining us today. We have been looking forward to sharing our second quarter results with you and also updating you on our latest thinking and priorities in this very exciting business landscape. I am going to start with the financials. The second quarter experienced year-over-year revenue growth of 30% compared to guidance of 22% to 26% and well ahead of 17% growth in the second quarter of last year. This marks our 17th straight quarter as a Rule of 40 company, entirely fueled by organic revenue growth and healthy margins, leading to cash flows that fund both innovation and our recurring dividends. Advertising revenue grew 44% year-over-year to $93 million. E-commerce remains the fastest-growing vertical within Advertising, continuing to grow over 100% year-over-year despite the ongoing volatility due to tariff uncertainty. While the growth support from e-commerce in our revenue mix has resulted in the vertical now representing nearly half of total Advertising revenue, we still believe we are under-indexing with ample headroom for continued expansion as we move into the retail-heavy back half of the year. We are also very pleased to see Search revenue returning to double-digit growth, up 11% year-over-year to $50 million in the quarter. The sequential growth of 6% was also twice as high as it was in Q2 last year, benefiting from the continued mix shift of our user base towards higher ARPU regions. We also see a broader trend with a new focus on high user intent traffic powered by AI leading to monetization opportunities arising not only during actual search, but also around pre and post-search, providing ample opportunities for those in a position to detect and create value. This allows us to deepen cooperation in the space with a wider range of partners from traditional search providers to e-commerce, travel, and gaming verticals, foremost in the U.S., though increasingly also a global trend with exciting new opportunities ahead. This strong revenue performance led to adjusted EBITDA of $32 million, just above the high end of our previously issued guidance and once again demonstrating that we can outperform our revenue expectations while hitting our profit targets. With that, I will move to product and our strategic opportunities. We are at the dawn of a new era in compute and surrounded by AI companies competing for users to their models. Beyond being a huge source of traffic, we believe that the browser will emerge as the operating system for these AI services. Today, the majority of AI agents run as cloud-hosted web pages. That is clearly inferior to the potential of a browser-native architecture, which elevates an agent's capabilities by allowing local native operations to run side-by-side with and sometimes indistinguishable from regular human operations. This is key for an AI agent to be truly and consistently helpful, enabling faster execution, richer contextual understanding, broader functional extensibility, and also a better solution for information privilege. The browser AI agent can have access to all the information accessible by the user, whether it's local files, communication platforms, or premium subscription content with greater control of privacy and security and more efficient use of computing resources. In this context, we are so excited about what we are building for public release during the fall, the AI browser, Opera Neon. Neon will combine major AI use cases into a single user interface with the native functionality of the Opera browser that is already appreciated for productivity. Opera Neon is built to be the gateway to AI, web applications, and automation convergence. The value creation opportunity is huge. For example, there are over 1 billion knowledge workers worldwide who rely on the browser as their primary workspace. These same workers on average juggle nine productivity apps a day and a far greater number of web tabs, all in all losing 40 minutes to context switching every day. This creates an opportunity for an Agentic AI collaborator as a natural evolution of how people work based on existing user habits and muscle memory. Opera is uniquely positioned for this, both in terms of competence and scale. We have been pioneering browser innovation for the past 30 years, and we operate at a scale far greater than most web-based AI platforms with our nearly 300 million users. We will make AI widely accessible, naturally integrated, and with immediate productivity benefits for our users. Automation and task intelligence will be built right into the routines that already exist. We can't wait to show you. Moving on from AI, I wanted to give you an update on Opera GX, the browser made for gamers. The GX user base was 33 million MAUs in the second quarter, up 11% year-over-year and with an annualized ARPU of $3.47. Opera GX released an update during the quarter, providing users with a pack of enhanced tab management capabilities and improved multitasking features. The update allows for side-by-side tab viewing, easy tracing of recently visited pages, and the function to organize related tabs into collectible groups. We are also in the process of soft launching Opera GX in South Korea with Japan to follow shortly, leveraging our partnership with League of Legends as the preferred browser. There's a lot going on with our flagship browsers as well, both for computers and for phones. Though in the interest of time, I will dive deeper into those on our Q3 call later in the year since that will coincide with the upcoming rollout of the third edition of Opera One with even more new exciting features. In terms of our overall user base and economics, our strategy of focusing our products and marketing on the highest value segments is unchanged, resulting in solid 5% ARPU growth to an annualized level of $1.97 with 289 million MAUs in the quarter. I will wrap up with the final topic, stablecoins. We view the stablecoin market as one of the most exciting aspects within the fintech space. Through the use of non-custodial wallets, Opera created a stablecoin-based wallet called MiniPay. MiniPay allows people to hold, send, and receive funds instantly using just a phone number. MiniPay already works with over 40 different currencies in 53 countries and allows its users to seamlessly convert local cash into a stablecoin-backed wallet using their preferred method; card, Apple Pay, mobile money, or bank transfer and to switch back just as easily. A person located in Europe or the U.S. can then easily send funds or even make an instant payment for groceries and checkout thousands of miles away. MiniPay also introduced the notion of pockets, which allows for switching between stablecoins with just one click. With several real-world applications already, MiniPay has the potential to improve the lives of millions of people globally. By simplifying the experience, we removed some major barriers for people to take advantage of this technology. As a result, MiniPay has reached 9 million activated wallets and exceeded 250 million transactions and is now among the fastest-growing non-custodial wallets globally. In addition, we are seeing the development of third-party apps within MiniPay, further differentiating the app and creating a positive feedback loop to fuel additional growth. While our near-term priority is scale building, we already generated MiniPay revenue from integrations that ensure native support for ecosystem partners. MiniPay was already launched within our lightweight Opera Mini browser on Android phones and is now also available as a stand-alone app on both Android and iOS, providing an even richer feature set and setting the stage for transacting across continents without expensive remittance fees. We have observed positive regulatory developments in the stablecoin space, most recently the GENIUS Act in the United States and believe we can capture additional growth as this space continues to mature. All in all, we find ourselves in the privileged position of both being able to rapidly scale revenue opportunities while also being well situated to capitalize on two transformative and highly strategic technologies: AI and the adoption of stablecoins as a way to drive financial inclusion. We will stay very close to capture these opportunities, and we look forward to keeping you posted on these developments. Frode will now dive into the details behind our financial results before providing our updated guidance for the remainder of 2025. Frode?

Thanks, Tom. First of all, we are very pleased to yet again deliver on high expectations and exceed both our own guidance as well as Street expectations. Revenue growth was 30% year-over-year, well ahead of our already strong guidance of 22% to 26% growth. Looking at the first half as a whole, we grew revenue 35% year-over-year, which is more than double the year-over-year growth in the first half of 2024. Over the past year, our Advertising revenue has scaled to new levels. Preparing for and then seizing e-commerce opportunities, we saw major growth acceleration in the second half of last year, followed by an unprecedented sequential growth from the seasonal peak of Q4 into Q1 2025. And with Q2, we saw the expansion of global opportunities, largely offsetting the impact of tariff-related headwinds in U.S. e-commerce. We have been positively assured by the resilience of our newly scaled Advertising revenue streams in an otherwise volatile macro picture. We also saw Search revenue return to double-digit growth as expected, which adds to our ability today to significantly raise our growth expectations for the year. On the cost side, Q2 OpEx came in according to our prior directional commentary across marketing, compensation, and the other smaller items combined, while cost of revenue scaled with the revenue overperformance and came in at the same percentage of revenue as in Q1. This means that we were able to grow faster than expected and strengthen our overall business trajectory going into the second half of the year while still exceeding the high end of our adjusted EBITDA guidance. Our operating cash flow was $33 million in the quarter, representing 103% of adjusted EBITDA, with the cash flow headwinds of Q1 representing tailwinds in Q2. Free cash flow from operations came in at $29 million or 91% of adjusted EBITDA. As always, we continue to expect fluctuations in cash conversion on a quarterly basis with the year-to-date conversion stabilizing as the year progresses. Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.26 in the quarter. We present adjusted net income and adjusted diluted EPS to provide a consistent view on the underlying business performance, excluding accounting impacts from investments such as OPay and share-based compensation expenses, which is quite volatile in the P&L due to timing of grants, while the number of actual equity instruments vested each year has been fairly stable. This cost adjustment also eliminates the accounting impact of equity grants made by our majority shareholder, consisting of options in that shareholder itself and not causing dilution for Opera's other shareholders. The resulting adjusted diluted EPS, therefore, becomes a less volatile metric tied to the underlying profitability of our operations. As Song mentioned, the second quarter was our 17th consecutive quarter as a Rule of 40 company with revenue and adjusted EBITDA once again meeting or exceeding our previously issued guidance. We are incredibly happy to continue to execute at these levels of revenue growth matched by healthy profits, allowing us to continue to return cash to shareholders through our recurring dividend program. Since January 2023, we have distributed $2.80 of dividends per share. And during the three years prior to that, we bought back 30% of our outstanding stock as another way of driving value for our shareholders. Now turning to guidance. For 2025 as a whole, we now guide revenue of $585 million to $597 million or 22% to 24% growth over 2024. This is the second time we refresh 2025 guidance and the second time we add three percentage points to the annual growth rate. Our guidance implies a continued acceleration of our full year revenue growth from 20% in 2023, 21% in 2024, and now 23% at the midpoint for 2025, while continuing to reflect appropriate caution for potential headwinds. Similar to before, given the hockey stick growth of the second half of 2024, we have based our guidance on sequential modeling. The raised estimates capture the Q2 overperformance and the increased confidence in our path for the second half. As before, this results in a relatively stable trend of quarterly revenue growth measured on a two-year CAGR, which captures the scale we have built in recent quarters while also evening out our forward-looking growth profile. In terms of adjusted EBITDA, we lifted the bottom end of the range for now, guiding $136 million to $140 million for the year as a whole or a margin of 23.4% at the midpoint. This reflects a continued expectation for margin expansion in the second half of the year, but also the weakened U.S. dollar relative to other currencies eats up about one-third of the benefit by affecting our cost base. The conversion of international currencies to USD results in a percentage cost increase, most notably for compensation costs, which increases by about $1 million per quarter in U.S. dollars compared to the rates from when we last gave guidance. Apart from such fluctuations, economies of scale continue to benefit us as an underlying trend. Cost-wise, we then implicitly guide to a full-year OpEx base pre-adjusted EBITDA of $453 million at the midpoint. For the year as a whole, we expect the cost of revenue items combined to come in at 34% to 35% of revenue following the continued growth of Opera Ads. Other cost items grow at a lower pace than our revenue and thereby reduce as a percentage of revenue relative to 2024. This includes marketing costs, which we expect to grow at mid- to high single digits; compensation costs, which will increase about 10%; and the sum of all other OpEx items pre-adjusted EBITDA will likely increase at a low single-digit percentage. In line with this, we guide Q3 revenue of $146 million to $149 million, representing 20% growth at the midpoint and Q2 adjusted EBITDA of $34 million to $36 million or a 24% margin at the midpoint. Within the implied quarterly OpEx base of $112.5 million at the midpoint, we expect that cost of revenue items as a percentage of revenue will be 34% to 35% in the quarter. We expect marketing costs in the mid-$30 million range and thereby relatively stable versus the prior quarters this year. And we expect cash compensation costs to increase about $1 million to $2 million versus the Q2 level, including the effects of the weaker U.S. dollar relative to the main currencies of our salary expense. The sum of all other OpEx items pre-adjusted EBITDA are expected to tick up slightly. Giving guidance in these periods that combine such rapid revenue growth in an environment with great changes, both on the macroeconomic stage as well as the technological one has proven to be difficult, though we believe caution has served us well. After all, the guidances that later turn out to be conservative were well beyond expectations at the time they were given. And yet again, I believe we have guided something that we should all feel proud and pleased to achieve while recognizing that volatility goes both ways, and we, of course, hope to continue giving those positive surprises. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions.

Two questions from me, please. One on the Western market user base, the sequential growth was quite strong, I think the strongest we've seen in some time. And on the flip side, GX users didn't really grow. So is this a reflection of how you spend your marketing spend? Just trying to understand the dynamics there in terms of what drove the strength in Western market users versus GX? And the second question I have is just around Neon. Can you just maybe share some thoughts on how should we think about the pricing of the product and also the cost side of things as you would probably have to pay for the compute for it?

Yes, it's Song Lin. I'll briefly address that. At a high level, I believe there's some seasonality to consider. GX users tend to be younger, mainly consisting of gamers and Gen Z, so they are significantly impacted by summer holidays. This introduces some seasonal factors. However, we anticipate changes in Q3 and Q4, which should become more apparent. Internally, we do not operate solely on growth metrics for GX; it serves more as a reflection of broader trends. We focus on ROIs, identifying the greatest potential, and where our products have been well received. Notably, we experienced substantial growth in Europe for Q2, which is promising and demonstrates that having more AI options can be beneficial. It raises awareness that there are browser choices beyond just defaults, potentially driving greater adoption. We find that in regions where AI interest is high, it becomes easier for us to attract users.

Maybe a two-parter on Neon. With the announcement in the release and getting closer to a public launch there. I wanted to go a little bit deeper first, big picture on how you think the browser environment is going to change more broadly. This clearly is a first step towards a direction of sort of AI generation in browsers and how you think about the multiyear pathway for the browser landscape generally changing and how you align the platform for those changes? And then the second piece would just be in terms of launching something like this in the public, how should we think about the investments needed either on the marketing side or on the infrastructure side? I know Naved asked about sort of the cost of compute tied to it, but just trying to understand a little bit of sort of fixed versus variable investments behind this over a longer duration period of time.

Sure. I want to take this opportunity to address a question I didn't answer earlier about Neon and the general landscape. First, it's important to note that we are still in the early stages. At this point, our primary focus is on achieving product-market fit. Speaking generally about our product and the growth of browsers, I believe it's clear that with the rise of AI, the traditional web interface has become the preferred way for people to access information. This is particularly evident with AI, as it has shown that traditional web access is superior to app-based platforms for operating and retrieving information effectively. This is promising news for the future of browsers, especially compared to earlier beliefs that favored apps exclusively. The consensus is shifting, and now we recognize that both AI companies and users see the web and browsers as pivotal for the future. As the web gains prominence, I see two key ways to access information. The first is through traditional webpage services provided by AI providers, like ChatGPT operating on a web page. However, as we delve deeper into AI applications, it is becoming increasingly clear that a native solution will be necessary because AI will need to access extensive information stored locally. AI will become an integral part of daily activities, making it difficult to rely solely on cloud-based solutions. AI requires direct access to various personal and essential data on users' devices, including premium content and email, which would be challenging to retrieve if only relying on the cloud. This trend is evident, and AI companies acknowledge that a significant portion of functionality must be integrated natively into applications, such as on PCs. Browsers are ideally suited for this purpose because they inherently have a closer link to the local environment. That’s why we are heavily investing in research around Neon, as we believe we are well-positioned to lead in this area. While other companies are discussing the importance of these developments, many do not realize that we possess the scale and resources necessary to make it happen. For reference, some competitors talking about overtaking Chrome have only 20 to 30 million monthly active users, whereas we have nearly 300 million, built up over many years. We are well-equipped to make significant advancements in this area, which we consider to be part of our future direction. Looking ahead, I anticipate a blend of business models—some will remain free through advertising, as we can generate revenue this way, while others may adopt a subscription format for deep, extensive usage. We've seen that people are willing to pay for enhanced experiences, so it’s reasonable to adopt a model that incorporates both advertising-sponsored use cases and subscription options for those wanting a more in-depth experience. I hope this clarifies our approach.

Congrats on the quarter. I have two questions, if I could. The first is on the stablecoin, the MiniPay, the 9 million activated wallets, that's great. How do you monetize the engagement? Is this just about encouraging user growth and retention? Or is there another angle here? Is there any way to connect the dots between MiniPay user growth and, I don't know, sustained ad revenue growth, for example?

Yes, it's Song Lin. I think I also want to touch on this, and Frode can add more information. We are being cautious about announcing new initiatives. We've actually been developing MiniPay for several years, and we are pleased to see it gaining traction at the right time. Internally, we're quietly excited about its growth and the strong market presence in various areas. Additionally, the widespread acceptance of stablecoins across the industry is important for success in fintech. We're beginning to see a lot of factors come together, which is why we are feeling optimistic. Regarding monetization, MiniPay stands out as a product with a good market fit and revenue potential. It's inherently linked to money within the fintech space. It's already generating sales for us, even though that isn't the immediate focus. The model is approved for monetization, and we plan to collaborate with ecosystem partners to integrate functionalities and stablecoins into MiniPay, which will allow us to earn from strategic investment agreements. MiniPay is a solid example of a product that has monetization potential built into it without needing traditional advertising or search means. The stablecoin sector is proving to be profitable, as shown by recent successes. With a sufficient user base, there is a natural path to revenue generation. In a way, this is similar to how search works for browsers; users don’t typically see it as advertising, but as a vital feature, allowing us to earn revenue in the background. Similarly, MiniPay offers a way to monetize due to its inherent nature without intrusive ads.

That's great. And actually, that sort of ties into my next question, which was on Search revenue and the rebound there. And Frode, I think you mentioned that it was expected and maybe I lost track of why you were expecting it to rebound. But I'm just wondering what drove that? What I tend to think of Search revenue as a function of the number of searches. So did Search volume rise on a per user basis? Or is this simply a change in revenue per search that's perhaps driven by the shift in users to higher-value markets?

Yes. When we last reported, we already saw the trends were picking up. We were in the single digits year-over-year growth last quarter, and then we saw we are getting back towards the double digits. And I think we expect Search to continue to do well for the remainder of the year, and that's reflected in our guidance. But I don't think I should go into sort of the detailed breakdown of how we model or predict it.

Okay. That's helpful. In terms of the various verticals, the focus is still primarily on products rather than services at this stage. Is there a chance to expand into travel and other sectors beyond just traditional goods?

I can provide some insights on this. Currently, the fastest growth is in retail, which is encouraging. We have seen that intent-based advertising is effective, and nearly all of our advertisers operate on a performance basis, which serves as solid evidence of this effectiveness. Additionally, travel remains a significant sector for us. We have historically been strong distribution partners for travel-related companies, such as Booking.com. It’s clear that there is a promising combination of both browsers and AI. Moreover, we have previously noted that other verticals, like fintech, also present substantial opportunities. Executives in these sectors tend to engage in browser environments, making it a natural fit, and they are likely among those most impacted by AI, suggesting there could be fruitful synergies. Overall, these areas represent good potential for our future development, and we are exploring them further.

Just a few quick ones here. On the e-commerce business, as that business will start to comp, the comps get a little bit more difficult. But how should we think about the seasonality in terms of kind of the revenue there? Obviously, probably a little bit more weighted over time to the higher spend quarters. But just wanted to get your thoughts on how you see that playing out in the different verticals?

Yes, I can share some thoughts. To recap, last year we experienced a growth rate of 17% year-over-year in the first half, which increased to 20% and then 29% in the second half. The comparisons in the latter half of the year are definitely more challenging. However, we benefit from the shopping season, which serves as a positive factor for that period. At the same time, we prefer not to expect the same level of exceptional performance in the second half, so we're approaching our outlook with caution. That's why we focus on the two-year growth rate by quarter to achieve a more consistent growth profile overall.

Can you talk more about the tariff-related headwinds you kind of called out in the quarter? Are these temporary? Or is this something we can see kind of like persisting through the rest of this year?

Yes, I can comment on that. I think it played out a bit as expected. So when we last reported, it was late April, and we were past the initial launch of tariffs. And I think, of course, since then, maybe there's been somewhat more stabilization in the broader picture. But it did translate into a real headwind, and we are very proud to have been able to offset that with global growth essentially. So I think as we look ahead, I think we are starting to see some recovery now, but it definitely represents an upside potential for us to see a return to even higher activity levels as in pre-tariff terrain.

Yes, it's Song Lin. I can briefly comment. I would say that it's still early stage, but we have announced that we are the preferred browser. East Asia is one of the bigger and more important markets for those games. As a result, we have observed some interesting attractions that the GX are gaining popularity among users in those countries. It makes sense for us to deepen our efforts there. However, these regions require more localization, which we had not prioritized in the past, but now we see opportunities. We are diving in. It might be too early to estimate the scale of market returns, but it's an exciting market. Interestingly, we already see strong growth potential in e-commerce in those regions based on our regular base or limited user coverage on the generic browsers. Another important factor is that we are very excited about monetization potentials, which is why we believe that expanding our coverage in those key developed countries is the right move.

Okay, that's helpful. Could you clarify the Neon product launch? Is it built on your technology, or are you using other language models? I would appreciate a refresher to better understand what powers that new browser.

Sure. So yes, it's Song Lin. I'll quickly cover that, right? So yes, I think essentially, we are using similar approaches as most others that we do rely on the big base models from those bigger AI companies. I don't think we have plans to spend billions of dollars to train the large language model because I think that's repetitive. And I guess the beauty of that is that because the market of big language models are so competitive, that it's almost a bit commoditized in some ways that actually allow us to be able to have a good relationship with almost all of them to actually be able to use the best language model at any given time in any given scenario. So I would almost say that's an advantage of that. And also because of all the investment and the competitions, we actually see that the costs have actually been lowered quite dramatically. As there is still competition, we believe that will still be the case. And I think that's actually a good time for a player like us. And then on top of it, I think our contribution would mostly be on, number one, how to give the relevant context and how to allow AI to operate in a browser like environment. I think that will be the best advantage that we would have. And I think that will be a huge win for us to nail it, and that's what we are focusing on. Yes, I will provide some comments first, and then Matt can add his thoughts. It's quite interesting to see the current situation. We are closely following these developments and are well-informed about the players involved. It's intriguing because some companies are claiming they are well-positioned to accommodate Chrome under certain jurisdictions. We have had a strong partnership with Google for over 20 years. Additionally, we are one of the largest independent browsers, celebrating 30 years of independence this year. As innovators in the browser space, we possess a deep understanding of technology and have 300 million monthly active users, which is still growing. This positions us strongly in ongoing discussions. Our name should certainly come up among the largest independent browsers. Being a European company has its advantages and disadvantages, and we might not be as frequently discussed in these contexts. However, we recognize the need to increase our presence in the U.S., which has been our largest market for many years and is gaining more importance. We need to focus on strengthening our efforts there. As for specific comments on this case, we maintain good cooperation with all the involved partners.

Sure. So like again, thank you to everyone for joining us today. We look forward to sharing the results and outlook with you. And now we come to an extremely exciting second half of the year. We have many launches to come. We will work hard to seize the opportunities that come with it and look forward to keeping you posted. Have a good day, all of you.

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