Shares of Opera (OPRA 1.88%) have blown hot and cold on the market so far this year, as the company's strong quarterly results have been overshadowed by the broader stock market weakness; however, analysts are expecting shares of the Norway-based web browser maker to reverse the 8% drop they have witnessed so far in 2025 and head higher in the coming year.
Opera stock carries a 12-month price target of $25 as per the seven analysts covering the stock, with all of them having a buy rating. That points toward 44% gains from current levels. There is a good chance that Opera will be able to indeed deliver such solid gains and head higher thanks to its impressive growth and attractive valuation.
Let's look at the reasons why buying Opera stock right now could turn out to be a smart move.
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Opera is stepping on the gas
Opera released its first-quarter results on April 28, and the company crushed Wall Street's expectations by a big margin. Its revenue shot up 40% year over year, while adjusted earnings increased by 35%. This marks a significant improvement from the year-ago period when the company reported a 17% jump in revenue and a flat bottom-line performance.
What's more, Opera has raised its full-year revenue growth guidance by three points to 20% to $575 million at the midpoint. The company, which is known for its web and mobile browsers, has been benefiting from the stronger monetization of its properties. Advertisers are now spending more money on the company's Opera Ads platform, which gives them multiple channels to reach its 293 million monthly active users (MAUs) across both mobile and desktop.
From programmatic advertising that uses real-time data to help advertisers buy and serve ads to premium display areas on its web browsers to push notifications and in-app notifications, Opera is trying to entice advertisers by offering multiple ways to display ads. The good part is that this strategy is paying off. Opera's ad revenue shot up an impressive 63% year over year in the previous quarter and accounted for two-thirds of its top line.
Another thing worth noting is that Opera's average revenue per user (ARPU) increased by an impressive 45% year over year in Q1, owing to the terrific growth of the advertising business. Looking ahead, there is a good chance that Opera will be able to win a bigger share of advertisers' wallets as it is integrating agentic artificial intelligence (AI) into its browsers that will perform tasks on users' behalf.
Opera's Browser Operator platform will allow users to shop online, book tickets, look for hotels, and complete other tasks on the web with the help of an AI agent that will take instructions from users before going about its job. This could help Opera strike more advertising deals through preferred partnerships and revenue-sharing models. For instance, the AI agent could direct the user toward a preferred travel booking website for booking tickets or hotels, and Opera could earn a commission out of the transaction.
All this explains why the company is now confident of delivering stronger growth in 2025. Even better, analysts are expecting Opera to maintain a healthy double-digit growth rate for the next couple of years as well.
OPRA Revenue Estimates for Current Fiscal Year data by YCharts
Stronger earnings growth is likely to translate into impressive stock price upside
Consensus estimates are projecting an 18% increase in Opera's earnings this year to $1.14 per share. That's expected to accelerate to 23% next year, which is not surprising considering the stellar improvement in the ARPU that the company clocked last quarter.
With Opera integrating new features, such as AI, into its browsers that could unlock more value for advertisers and encourage them to spend more on its platform, it won't be surprising to see the company's earnings growth accelerating beyond the next couple of years. That's why now would be a good time to buy this tech stock as it is trading at just 18.5 times earnings, a discount to the Nasdaq-100 index's earnings multiple of 31 (using the index as a proxy for tech stocks).
If the market decides to put a higher valuation on Opera because of its improving growth profile and it trades in line with the index's multiple after a year, its stock price could hit $35 (based on the projected earnings estimate for 2025). That would be nearly double the current levels, indicating that Opera has the potential to outpace analysts' one-year price target and skyrocket substantially going forward.
