Opera TV Store integrated with MediaTek's Smart TV chipsets

Reaching millions of app-hungry users

OSLO, Norway, and TAIPEI, Taiwan — Opera Software today announces that MediaTek Inc., a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, has integrated the Opera TV Store into its Smart TV solution. Manufacturers that implement MediaTek chipsets can now provide web functionality and application environments for their TVs, set-top boxes and media players.

Smart TVs are rapidly gaining share worldwide. NPD DisplaySearch forecasts that shipment of Smart TVs with open internet access will grow to 95 million in 2016. The connected TV industry is embracing open standards, such as HbbTV and HTML5.

The Opera TV Store, an HTML5-based app store for connected TVs, set-top boxes and media players, offers a selection of high-quality, easily navigated web apps. Side-by-side applications allow viewers to use TV apps without losing focus on the program they are watching. The Opera TV Store has also been enhanced with the ability to display ads, thereby enabling publishers and content providers to inject pre-roll ads and to monetize their applications. The store is now available on Sony Bravia TVs and Blu-ray DVD players. It will be soon shipped by other leading TV and set-top-box manufacturers, such as TCL and Humax.

“MediaTek is an important partner for us. Our two companies share the vision of bringing more web to more people,” says Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “Implementing the Opera TV Store in MediaTek’s Smart TV solution will help to move Smart TVs from being a novelty to the mainstream. Millions of app-hungry users will be able to enjoy a comfortable, ‘leanback’ experience on their TVs.”

The Opera TV Store is now integrated in MediaTek’s chipsets. TV and media player manufacturers that want to provide the complete Smart TV solution to their end users can now reduce the time to market significantly. Currently, in the Opera TV Store, there are more than 100 high-quality, HTML5-powered TV apps available, such as Associate Press News, Facebook, AUPEO!, Tunein Radio, Redux TV, Twitter, Viewster, Vimeo and more. The number of the apps in the store is constantly growing, since developers can easily repurpose existing HTML5 applications running on computers and phones to work on TVs, creating cross-platform applications that work on any device running the Opera TV Store.