This archive report was first published on 3 July 2020.
Published on July 3, 2020, Opera's Opay has made the decision to shut down its motorcycle hailing service ORide, car-hailing services OCar, and delivery service OExpress. The move comes amidst the poor economic climate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Opay, which launched ORide in Nigeria last year, had invested $170 million to run the service. The company had also invested in other services such as OBus, OTrike, OKash, OWealth, OFood, and OLists.
The decision to shut down ORide, OCar, and OExpress was likely influenced by the Lagos ban on bike hailing, which affected the services' ability to operate effectively. Additionally, the firm had not been making significant profits from the bike hailing services, making the decision to 'pause' the services indefinitely a logical one.
With the closure of the transport and logistics verticals, OPay is now focusing its energies on payments, loans, and eCommerce via its online store OMall and a B2B site OTrade. The company will need to grow its payments, investment, and lending services to the mass market without the support of ORide, OCar, and OFood.
During the launch of OPay, the company aimed to be Nigeria's biggest super app, with ORide being just a start. OPay aimed to provide African users with great content and value-added services, as well as strengthen the internet ecosystem with local partners.
Opera, the parent company of OPay, has the resources and technology to scale OPay into more services. In May 2017, Opera announced that it would invest $100 million to facilitate the growth of the African digital economy and maintain its number one position.
Instead of bundling services into its browser, Opera launched OPay in Nigeria and Kenya with plans to expand across Africa. In November 2019, OPay raised a $120 million Series B round to expand its product portfolio and launch its services in Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa.
“Africa is a very important market for Opera. Nine of the top 20 Opera Mini user countries are from Africa,” said Richard Monday, Vice President of Africa, Opera Software. “We aim to invest heavily in Africa, to build a local platform and grow with the local business partners. This platform will expand the user base for content providers, e-commerce businesses, operators, OEM’s and others to strengthen the African internet ecosystem.”
