-- "If Chinese entrepreneurs venture to Africa, and if they are not afraid of hardship, fatigue, or loneliness, they will achieve great success. The probability of such success is quite high." Yahui Zhou's speech in 2019 not only reflected his optimistic assessment of the African market but also became an accurate prophecy for his own entrepreneurial journey.
After graduating from Tsinghua University, he experienced the Internet revolution from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0. Now, as the co-CEO of Opera and the helmsman of OPay, he is validating his business philosophy on the distant African continent.
01 Entrepreneur Turns Around
Yahui Zhou's career is a brief history of the development of China's Internet plus. Born in Lijiang, Yunnan in February 1977, he embarked on his entrepreneurial journey at Tsinghua University at the age of 22.
In 2008, he founded Kunlun Tech, building it into one of China’s largest online game developers. However, after the company went public in 2015, he “felt like I had fallen behind”.
Yahui Zhou redefined his role and devoted 60% of his time to overseas markets, particularly in Africa, an emerging market-1. In his view, the growth of domestic internet users has slowed down, while the rapid growth of overseas internet platforms has just begun-1.
From being the Chairman of Kunlun Tech, to being the Co-CEO of Opera, and then to being the CEO of OPay, this entrepreneur has constantly transformed his identity, but he always considers himself as just an "entrepreneur".
02 Payment Wars in Africa
In 2018, OPay, incubated by Kunlun Tech's Opera browser, was established in Nigeria, positioned as a one-stop mobile platform for scenarios such as payment, transportation, and grocery delivery.
Nigeria is one of the countries with the lowest bank coverage, with approximately 60 million adults lacking bank accounts and 95% of transactions being conducted in cash. This market void has become the fertile ground for the rapid rise of OPay.
OPay has adopted a diversified business strategy, aiming to create a Nigerian version of a super app. Building upon its payment business, it has added ride-hailing service ORide, food delivery service OFood, and e-commerce business OMall.
In 2019, OPay successfully completed Series A and Series B financing rounds of USD 50 million and USD 120 million respectively, setting a record for financing in the African fintech sector at that time.
03 Strategic contraction and focus
However, OPay's expansion has not been smooth sailing. In 2020, the company underwent significant strategic adjustments, cutting most of its business lines outside of financial payments, including its transportation businesses ORide and OBus, as well as its e-commerce businesses OMall and OTrade.
Behind this decision is Yahui Zhou's sober understanding of the essence of business: "Essentially, I find it hard to accept the idea of constantly raising funds without seeing the end."
He admitted, "For a new entrepreneur, he can do this because he has nothing to lose. But for me, I cannot afford to fail in any of my entrepreneurial endeavors."
Focusing on the main business of payment has become a pivotal turning point for OPay. Since March 2020, the company's business has entered a phase of rapid growth.
Compared to December 2019, the revenue of the payment business has seen significant growth. Despite experiencing a low point due to the impact of the pandemic, it returned to the growth track after the second quarter.
04 Localization Innovation Model
OPay's success lies not only in its strategic adjustments, but also in its profound localization innovation. The company identified a significant gap in consumer-side payments in Nigeria, particularly in regions where banking services are insufficiently covered.
They distribute POS machines through recruiting offline agents, provide offline withdrawal services, and allow users without bank accounts to send and receive payments and pay bills through thousands of agents.
This model significantly lowered the barrier to entry, enabling OPay to expand rapidly. By June 2020, OPay had garnered over 5 million users in Nigeria and processed more than 60% of electronic payment transactions.
By 2024, OPay had amassed over 50 million registered users and achieved a daily transaction volume exceeding $10 million, emerging as the dominant force in Nigeria's mobile wallet market.
05 Competitors and Cooperative Ecosystem
The payment market in Africa also features other Chinese companies. Transsion Holdings and NetEase have jointly established PalmPay to compete with OPay. Despite their competition, the two companies, being in different countries, often have their employees dine and chat together, fostering a sense of "mutual understanding and sympathy".
In August 2021, OPay secured a $400 million Series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, with a valuation of $2 billion, emerging as a new unicorn in the African fintech sector.
“We believe that our investment will help OPay expand its products to neighboring markets and replicate its successful business model in Egypt and other countries in the region,” said Kenta Matsui, managing director of SoftBank Group
Currently, OPay's business scope has expanded to countries such as Egypt and Pakistan, and it has established a strategic partnership with MasterCard to promote inclusive finance.
In 2024, OPay's valuation reached RMB 14 billion, and it was continuously listed on the Hurun Global Unicorn List.
06 The sense of crisis of a serial entrepreneur
One of the forces driving Yahui Zhou to keep moving forward is his strong sense of crisis. He frankly admitted, "I have a sense of crisis, worrying about being marginalized and needing to become mainstream."
He works 14 to 15 hours a day, from 7 am to around 12 pm, basically every day. His goal is to catch up with the group of young entrepreneurs who started their businesses together in Wudaokou back then: Zhang Yiming, Wang Xing, Su Hua, and others.
"Each generation has its own mission, and they are all the fastest learners and evolvers in their respective times," Yahui Zhou commented on these industry pioneers.
Even when receiving an honor like the "Innovative Entrepreneur Award", Yahui Zhou still maintains the humility and diligence of an entrepreneur. He positions the mission of Kunlun Tech as "providing basic internet services to users in more developing countries, truly realizing 'technology changes life'".
When OPay's payment network has covered over 300,000 mobile money merchants in Nigeria, when it was hailed as "the fastest-growing and most popular fintech company" in the Egyptian market by Forbes, and when it plans to deploy over 100,000 smart POS devices in Pakistan, Yahui Zhou still works 17 hours a day.
On the African continent, every payment made by tens of millions of users with a swipe of their fingertips is silently validating the foresight of this Chinese entrepreneur - to become a mainstream player, rather than a marginal one, in the world's fastest-growing internet market.
And the words hanging high above his company's entrance have become a reality: "Collaborate with like-minded individuals to create products that can change the world."
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Organization: Opay
Website: https://www.opayweb.com/
Release ID: 89182341
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