There is a lot of talk on the Net about Facebook's proposed desire to buy Opera, a browser for PCs and mobiles. There has also been criticism concerning the same.
One of the critics has been Mr. Trip Chowdhry, the Managing Director of equity research at Global Equities Research. "Buying Opera will likely be another stupid acquisition, the previous one being Instagram," wrote Mr. Chowdhry to investors recently.
However, there is some data to suggest that this may not necessarily be a bad move. Earlier this month, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Executive Officer of Facebook said that mobiles were one of the top priorities for Facebook in 2012.
Opera fits in beautifully with the mobile strategy. According to statcounter.com, a site that gives statistics on global browsing trends, usage of mobiles for browsing the Internet shot up from 5.21 per cent in April 2011 to 9.58 per cent in April 2012. In the same time frame, Opera has maintained the same market share of over 21 per cent in the mobile browser category. Clearly, Opera is the browser of choice for many who use the mobile for browsing.
One could argue that Facebook doesn't need a browser to enter the mobile market--an app for popular mobile platforms like Android and iOS could do the trick just as well. But this said a browser of its own could help Facebook to offer more tightly integrated features and a richer browsing experience.