African fin-tech company Opera web browser, owner of OPay announced the shutdown of its multiple chain of services e.g popular bike hailing service ORide, OCar, OFood and OExpress businesses in Nigeria while it focus on the payment platform of its business.
LagosspyNG sources noted that, OPay’s investors sent a memo in the early hours of Tuesday 30th June, 2020, to the Nigerian team directing all other verticals but payments to shut down operations while it also ordered all the Chinese expatriate workers to return to China as soon as possible.
Opay company released the statement on its official social media channel, Instagram handle @opay.ng on Thursday, 3rd of July, 2020. All the other businesses to be shut down to include the popular bike hailing service, ORide; a logistics delivery service, OExpress and a ride hailing service OCar and OFood.
The statements reads; “We can confirm that some of our business units including the ride-hailing services, ORide, OCar as well as our logistics service 0Express will be put on pause. This is largely due to the harsh business conditions which have affected many Nigerian companies, including ours, during this COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown, and government ban.”
“Globally, ride-sharing businesses have been heavily impacted by the pandemic. But several months ago, foreseeing this issue, OPay had already taken preemptive steps to restructure our business focus away from rides. It is worthy to note that this final restructuring has minimal impact on OPay as a whole business. It is important to clarify that ride-sharing had always been only one part, and not a major part of OPay’s diversified business in Nigeria.”
“During the pandemic, we have seen continued demand for our offline mobile money agency, and online digital payment, which remain the core of our business. From January to April 2020 for example, we witnessed a 44% growth of offline and online transaction value even in the midst of pandemic and lockdown. This is a testament to the high demand for flexible and easy financial services by Nigerians. OPay remains one of the most well-funded and profitable mobile money platforms in Nigeria, and we will continue to do more for our customers.
“We believe a financial platform coupled with goods’ platform will form the future of Nigeria’s technology development.” The statement concluded.”
According to reports, OPay has already set up a team tasked with the recovery of all the ORide motorcycles on the road.
Recall that trouble started for the fin-tech startup when the Lagos State Government banned the operations of commercial motorcycles on most major roads in the state.
The fintech startup tried to pivot to logistics two months ago, but that, according to the source, has proved unprofitable leaving the investors with little choice but to pull the plug.
Opera first launched the OPay mobile money platform in Lagos in 2018 on the popularity of its internet search engine in Africa. A year later, the Norway-based, Chinese-owned company sent jitters through Nigeria’s startup world when it rallied investors to back OPay with $170 million in VC.
This development brings to a gradual and disappointing end the multi-product and super app strategy that Opera had hoped would become the holy grail for profitable internet business in Africa’s most populous country.
The company has decided to focus on the payment part of its business which it explained, has seen huge growth even during the lockdown across Nigeria.
