Opera Limited is winding up one of its two Kenyan subsidiaries, Phoneserve Technologies Co. Limited, in a members’ voluntary liquidation that marks the closure of a legal entity whose advertising-based business model was rendered unviable by Kenyan regulators — but it does not signal the company’s departure from Kenya, nor from its fintech ambitions in Africa.

An official notice confirmed that a special resolution was passed by the members of Phoneserve Technologies on 8 September 2026, appointing George Weru and Muniu Thoithi of Nairobi as joint liquidators. Creditors have until 30 September 2026 to submit claims. The winding-up is a members’ voluntary liquidation, a procedure used when a company is solvent but shareholders decide to cease operations and distribute remaining assets.

The decision to dissolve Phoneserve was set in motion more than two years ago, when Kenya’s Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB) moved to ban betting firms from advertising on the “speed dial” feature — the bookmarks displayed on a browser’s start page — on Opera Mini and other browsers.

The regulatory intervention followed a petition by the Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek), which argued that the speed dial feature exposed consumers, especially children, to harmful gambling advertising. Justice Lawrence Mugambi directed the BCLB to ensure all gaming operators ceased using the speed dial feature forthwith, and the consent order was formally adopted by the court on 9 January 2024.

The ruling was notably asymmetric. The BCLB banned speed dials on Opera Mini while allowing Chrome, Safari, and other browsers to continue operating the feature normally. Kenya became the only country in the world to restrict basic browser functionality in this manner, a decision that industry players criticised as discriminatory.

For Opera, the implications were severe. The speed dial feature was a primary revenue channel in Kenya, displaying shortcuts to leading betting firms. Without that advertising income, the economics of Opera’s free data campaigns — under which users received up to 1.5 GB of free browsing per month — became untenable.

In April 2024, Opera announced it was pausing its free data campaigns in Kenya, affecting some 13.5 million local users. “We had to pause investment and free internet access in Kenya due to the decision of the local authorities to stop advertising on Speed Dials (Bookmarks) within browsers,” the company said in a statement. “We are hoping for a solution so that we can once again provide free data to you, our valued customers in Kenya.”

In 2023 alone, Opera had provided over four million gigabytes of data for free via the campaign, an equivalent of approximately 1.6 billion Kenyan shillings (about $12.4 million).

Opera’s corporate filings show that the company operated two Kenyan subsidiaries, both established as “operating entities that engage in local collections and monetization”. O-Play Kenya Limited was incorporated on 24 May 2017, while Phoneserve Technologies was established earlier, on 17 April 2015.

The two entities, however, pursued different business lines. O-Play Kenya became the operational vehicle for Opera’s fintech and payments strategy in the region. OPay launched in Kenya as a payment service operated through O-Play Kenya Limited, and the subsidiary managed the OKash microlending platform when it was introduced in 2018. In December 2018, Opera paid $9.5 million to acquire 100% of the shares in TenSpot Pesa Limited, the then owner of the OKash business.

Phoneserve, by contrast, was tied to the browser and advertising side of the business — the very revenue stream that the BCLB’s speed dial ban destroyed.

The distinction is critical. While Phoneserve is being wound up, O-Play Kenya Limited does not appear in the liquidation notice and remains part of Opera’s corporate structure. Opera’s list of significant subsidiaries as of 31 December 2025 still includes O-Play Kenya Ltd.

Despite the regulatory setbacks, Opera’s browser business in Kenya remains substantial. As of Q1 2025, Kenya was Opera Mini’s largest market globally, with 13 million users — approximately 12% of the browser’s 100 million global user base.

In November 2025, Opera renewed its partnership with Safaricom to offer 1.5 GB of free sponsored data per month through the Opera Mini browser. Since the return of the free data campaigns, Opera Mini has seen a 13% increase in monthly average Kenyan users, with 47% of Kenyans now using Opera Mini as their default browser — a 40% rise since the start of the year. Among Safaricom users specifically, Opera Mini has seen a 93% surge in daily active users and a 55% increase in pages loaded since relaunching the campaign.

Opera has also continued to invest in its browser technology, integrating its AI assistant Aria into Opera Mini in April 2025 — a feature designed to work without increasing data usage or app size. According to Jørgen Arnesen, EVP Mobile at Opera: “AI is rapidly becoming an integral part of the daily internet experience. Bringing Aria to Opera Mini is a natural next step for our most-downloaded browser.”

Opera’s fintech play in Africa extends well beyond its Kenyan operating entities. The company holds a 9.5% stake in OPay, the Nigerian fintech it helped found in 2018. That stake was valued at approximately $294.6 million at the end of 2025, implying an overall OPay valuation of approximately $3.1 billion.

OPay is now targeting a valuation of approximately $4 billion ahead of a planned US IPO, and has engaged Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase to advise on the offering. In 2025, the company posted $536.3 million in revenue, a 161% jump from the prior year, and processed $358 billion in gross transaction value.

Opera’s broader fintech ambitions also include MiniPay, a self-custodial stablecoin wallet built on the Celo blockchain. Launched as a mini-app within the Opera browser, MiniPay has since expanded into a standalone product and integrated with local payment rails such as M-PESA in Kenya and OPay in Nigeria.

The winding up of Phoneserve Technologies represents the closure of a specific legal entity whose business model was rendered unviable by regulation. It does not signal Opera’s departure from Kenya.

Opera’s presence in Kenya now rests on three pillars: the Opera Mini browser and its free data partnership with Safaricom; the Opera News platform, which was ranked as one of the top online news platforms in Kenya by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; and the fintech operations managed through O-Play Kenya.

The company’s strategic direction has been clear in its public communications. As recently as February 2024, Opera reaffirmed its “Africa First” strategy, pledging $100 million to expand internet access and financial tools across the continent. Opera Mini’s data-compression technology, which can reduce web page sizes by up to 90%, remains a critical tool in a market where data costs are a significant barrier to internet adoption.

The company’s 2024 annual report, filed with the SEC in April 2025, showed group revenue grew 21% year-over-year to $480.6 million, with adjusted EBITDA of $115.3 million. While the report did not separately disclose Kenyan revenue, it acknowledged that the strategic shift toward Western markets had led to an 8.5% decrease in emerging-market users even as overall monetisation improved.

For the 13.5 million Kenyans who relied on Opera’s free data campaigns, the practical impact of the regulatory intervention has been significant. 

Opera’s wager now is that its browser business, its news platform, and its fintech investments — particularly its stake in OPay — will prove more durable than the advertising model that Phoneserve once supported. Whether that bet pays off will depend on regulatory stability and the company’s ability to monetise its Kenyan user base through channels that do not rely on the speed dial advertising that regulators have now foreclosed.