Opera has strung together enough beat-and-raise quarters that the market has quietly stopped questioning whether growth is real and started asking how long it can last. That question gets another test on August 19, when the company reports its fiscal second quarter against a backdrop of decelerating headline growth rates that management insists are a comp effect rather than a demand problem.
Consensus calls for $176.7 million in revenue, up 23.6% year over year, alongside GAAP EPS of $0.26. That revenue figure would represent only a modest sequential uptick from the $175.8 million posted last quarter, but the year-over-year comparison remains strong. The EPS estimate sits slightly below the $0.28 reported in the prior quarter, even though it's well above the $0.18 earned in the same period last year. That juxtaposition, decent top-line growth paired with a sequential EPS dip, is worth watching closely, since it could reflect the rising cost pressures management flagged last quarter rather than any softening in the core business.
Management's full-year guidance, raised to $727 million to $740 million just one quarter ago from $720 million to $735 million, puts current annual consensus of roughly $730 million comfortably inside that range, closer to the middle than either edge. That's a notable shift from the pattern of the last several quarters, where Opera routinely guided conservatively and then blew past its own numbers. With the bar now raised twice in six months, this report needs to show that the underlying growth engine, not just favorable rounding, is what's driving results.
The most important storyline from the prior call was the reacceleration in query revenue, with total query growth hitting 23% and pure search climbing to 14% year over year, the best print since 2021. That reversal, after multiple quarters of deceleration, was the centerpiece of management's confident tone. This quarter needs to show that trend continuing, not just repeating. A pure search number stuck at 14% would be a fine result, but a slip back toward the 11-13% range seen earlier in 2025 would undercut the reacceleration narrative that investors have started to price in. Similarly, advertising revenue, which hit an all-time high of $117 million last quarter, needs to keep climbing to validate that Opera's monetization engine is still expanding, not just riding a favorable base.
On the cost side, management already warned that other operating expenses would grow around 20% year over year, up from a prior 15% estimate, due to hosting and AI compute costs. That's the swing factor behind the flattish EPS expectation. If those costs come in as guided, margins should still expand modestly given the offsetting benefit of slower cash compensation growth. But if AI infrastructure spending runs hotter than flagged, that would be the first real crack in an otherwise clean execution story.
Sentiment heading into this report is essentially neutral, a meaningful improvement from the distinctly bearish tone (-0.183) ahead of the last release. The stock has climbed nearly 12% since that report, outpacing the S&P 500 by about 2.6 points, and trades well above its 200-day moving average near $15.93. Shares are hovering just under the post-earnings high of $20.78, putting Opera in a position to test that level with a strong print or retreat toward the middle of its post-earnings range if results merely meet expectations.
The central issue is whether query revenue's reacceleration was a genuine inflection or a one-quarter anomaly, and whether rising AI-related costs stay contained enough to protect the margin trajectory management has promised. Get both right, and Opera's beat-and-raise streak extends into a new stage of the story. Miss on either, and the market will start wondering if the easy comps are finally running out.