Opera Software is to close its Russian subsidiary, leaving a staff of two in the country, down from 10 currently, the Russian media have reported.
The move might be part of the company’s global strategy, in which emerging markets are now less of a priority than in the past, local representative Mikhail Zaitsev told business daily Vedomosti.
In addition, Opera Software’s revenues in Russia have decreased considerably over the past few years — nearly threefold since 2012, according to Zaitsev, to less than $10 million.
Once extremely popular among Russian mobile users, the Opera browser is now under 10% market share today, lagging behind Chrome, Safari and Android for mobile browsers, according to StatCounter.
Opera’s desktop browser is doing slightly better with a 10-15% market share, coming third after Chrome and Firefox.
Censorship request from Roskomnadzor
Meanwhile Roskomnadzor, the Russian telecom regulator, has requested the company to prevent Russian Internet users from accessing banned websites.
Technically, access to sites can be filtered via Opera’s ‘Turbo’ mode, which allow users to bypass blocks on illegal sites, notes Kommersant, referring to exchanges with an unnamed source close to the Norwegian company.
However, such censorship cooperation may harm Opera’s image, note the experts interviewed by Kommersant.
Opera’s decision will depend essentially on the position of Golden Brick Capital Private Equity Fund I L.P., a Chinese investor which has just acquired the non-TV parts of Opera’s consumer business.
According to Roskomnadzor, 7% to 10% of Russians use means to bypass blocks on illegal sites. Currently, restrictions on access to Internet resources affect 74 web pages based on court decisions, the watchdog told Kommersant — the lastest example being LinkedIn.
