Opera wants to transform app installations into subscription services

The mobile app business model has gone largely unchanged since its inception. Developers typically either offer their apps for a one-time fee or make them free to use and collect revenue via in-app advertising or microtransactions. Opera Software, the company responsible for the Opera browser, has come up with a new approach to apps that has found a ton of success in other markets: subscriptions.

For entertainment services such as Netflix and Spotify, the all-you-can-eat model has been tremendously beneficial — both have racked up millions and millions of subscribers to date. When it comes to offering mobile applications, though, that idea of subscriptions hasn’t really taken off. Regardless of whether you’re an independent developer or a major brand, you depend heavily on storefronts like Apple’s App Store or Google Play to sell and promote your content. But Opera Software, known mostly for its web browsers, wants to change this. With its new Subscription Mobile Store initiative, Opera wants to give companies a platform to offer their apps through, as the name suggests, a subscription service.