Latest news with #Naspers
Zawya
a day ago
- Business
- Zawya
South Africa: Takealot grows revenue to fend off Amazon rivalry
South African online retail group, Takealot grew its full-year revenue by 15%, with growth supported by investments in logistics, enhanced customer offerings and its subscription service as it faces competition from new market entrant Amazon. Technology investor Naspers said that Takealot Group's revenue rose by 15% in local currency to $872m for the fiscal year ending 31 March. Despite this growth, the group posted an adjusted EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) loss of $13m. the group's general merchandise e-commerce platform and Amazon's direct competitor, saw its gross merchandise value (GMV) increase by 13%, with revenue climbing 17% and order volumes up by 15%. Takealot also owns on-demand platform Mr D, which offers restaurants, groceries and other shops. "I think their (Takealot) performance in the last year was ahead of our expectations, actually," Prosus and Naspers Group chief financial officer, Nico Marais told Reuters. "We did invest in our marketplace elements to improve the business, and we actually saw Amazon moving, probably not at the speed that we originally expected, which was to our benefit. So we are ready to fight off competition." The battle for online consumer spending intensified throughout 2024, with both global and local players investing heavily to capture market share. Amazon has since expanded its South African service to include non-perishable groceries. The US online retail giant launched in South Africa in May 2024. To defend its leading market share, Takealot said it will strengthen its market presence by enhancing its loyalty programme, TakealotMore, which it hopes will attract and keep existing customers. "The business will also focus on growth through range extension and key categories while improving unit economics through cost optimisation, particularly delivery costs and stock efficiencies," it added. The retailer is also investing in artificial intelligence to gain better understanding of its customers, identify trends, personalise marketing campaigns and automate customer experiences.
The Citizen
3 days ago
- Business
- The Citizen
Media24 takes a knock
The changes in its operations led to a significant decline in Media24's revenue and earnings. South Africa's largest media company, Media24, has reported a decline in revenue and earnings for the year ended March 2025. This follows the discontinuation of most of Media24's printed newspapers. These included Beeld, Rapport, City Press, Daily Sun, and Soccer Laduma, as well as the digital PDF editions of Volksblad and Die Burger Oos-Kaap. Parent company Naspers released its financial results on Monday. The global technology giant said it has also divested both its logistics operations, called M24 Logistics and On the Dot. Media24 realigns media operations The financial results also stated that the company has realigned its media operations to focus on two digital news brands, News24 and Netwerk24, by closing the digital content hub SNL24, divesting community newspapers and soccer titles, and transitioning the Sunday newspapers Rapport and City Press into digital-only brands, residing at Netwerk24 and News24, respectively. Naspers stated that Media24 is a leading digital media group in South Africa, with interests in digital news media, magazines, newspapers, book publishing, and television content production. 'It publishes several magazines and two newspapers and reaches 1 million average daily unique browsers, generating 9.7 million average daily pageviews across its digital platforms.' ALSO READ: Big news play: Media24 sells On the Dot, shifts to digital-first focus Media24 declines in revenue The changes have led to a significant decline in revenue and earnings for Media24. Revenue declined by 17% from $175 million (R3.199 billion) in 2024 to $141 million (R2.577 billion) in 2025. 'Trading results were eroded by the financial impact of the redesign, as well as an investment in foundation-phase schoolbook submissions to the South African Department of Basic Education,' read the results. Looking ahead Naspers said Media24 has established a strong base for AI use, with early outputs, enhanced by launching a GenAI circle, training sessions, and editorial workshops, which are focused mainly on back-end operations in its media divisions. 'These ranged from content summaries, translations and transcriptions to creating audiobooks, copy-editing, the creation of visuals, launching the contextual targeting tool Match24 for advertisers, and incorporating an AI-driven 'story sentiment' tracker to enhance brand-safe advertising, all under close human supervision. 'Looking forward to the financial year 2026, we remain committed to the valuable role we play in our society and democracy at large, while building a sustainable future for Media24 as a profitable digital media business focused on content production for news, television and books.' NOW READ: Media24 sells On the Dot, shifts to digital-first focus
IOL News
3 days ago
- Business
- IOL News
Prosus' strategy for AI-driven growth in global lifestyle and ecommerce markets
Prosus CEO Fabricio Bloisi said at their 2024 Capital Markets Day that he expected that the global internet group, which had constantly reinvented itself originally from a printing company in South Africa, was expected to report sustained earnings growth over the next few years. Image: Supplied Prosus has structured plans to increase earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) by 3.5 times in three years from the results reported this week, CEO of the Amsterdam based and JSE listed internet group, Fabricio Bloisi said Tuesday. He said in a presentation at the Naspers subsidiary's Capital Markets Day that this target would likely also include some acquisitions. He stated that while this was not an overly 'aggressive target', the world remained a place of many uncertainties at present, and they did not wish to provide a detailed description of their plans. He also said that the share buybacks would continue. The group had already bought back 29% of its shares since it listed in 2019. 'The discount (to net asset value) that the share is trading at is around 30% at present, a great opportunity, don't lose it,' he told an auditorium of investment specialists and researchers, and staff, in Amsterdam. He said that in the past financial year - the results were published Monday - the strong growth had been based on a 32% increase in dividend from the investment in China internet giant Tencent. The group's Ebitda had increased by more than 100%, group costs had increased by 10%, and the dividend was raised by 100%. In the 2026 financial year, the dividend from Tencent had increased by 24% so far. The group anticipated an increase in Ebitda of at least 83%, and the intention was to reduce group costs by 10%, 'which will provide us with a great opportunity to grow. Some might say this is optimistic, but we have shown that we deliver,' he said. He expressed confidence that the management of the group, which has some 2 billion customers in Europe, Souoth Africa, India and South America, would continue to grow substantially in the next few years based on the fast uptake of its AI-linked food service, fintech, and ecommerce innovations and through the optimisation of its workforce and ecommerce platforms. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. 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Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading He mentioned that in the past financial year, the first he had been in office and since the group embarked on a new strategy, some $2.6 billion of businesses had been sold or closed, and the management had to take many decisions that were difficult as it entailed selling or closing businesses that 'are not winning' and which had involved the loss of staff. He said that their business culture was based on 'keeping optimistic until you prevail, but on the other hand "we face the brutal facts.' He said they intended to build the biggest AI-driven lifestyle and ecommerce company outside the US, and the only way to be the best company during the next five years, which was predicted to be the biggest and fastest wave of global change due to AI in three hundred years, was to be the leader in this change. Unlike start-ups, however, and unlike other large global internet groups that were able to write $10 billion cheques to acquire news business, Prosus had already 10 trillion tokens of data at its disposal from which to develop its AI business, he said. Prosus's ecosystems span three core geographies: Europe, Latin America, and India, which are large markets where there is 'clear space and an open field of opportunity,' he said. He mentioned that Europe, with almost the same size economy as the US in terms of GDP, held significant potential through further ecommerce innovations, but while the group complies with all European Union regulations, he believed the market was over-regulated. He saidthat in global internet markets, waiting two years for a decision means 'we are already lost.' He noted, however, that recent interactions with the European Commission had provided some indication of greater flexibility in the future. Euro Beinet, Global Head of AI and Data Services at Prosus, said they had increased the number of engineers more than tenfold from the 60 they employed in 2018. He said that the group had so far developed some 800 different AI models for its business, and more than $100 million had been invested in AI development. He added that the group had also invested in more than 20 AI start-up companies that were developing models that could aid the group workforce or that could help reinvent the group's ecommerce offering. The intention was over time to be able to make every single digital surface or platform an AI interface. BUSINESS REPORT Visit:
CNA
3 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Prosus sets new targets in bid to become Europe's tech champion
Dutch technology investor Prosus on Wednesday unveiled new financial targets and reiterated its plan to become Europe's largest tech company with a market value of more than $200 billion. The group, in which South Africa's Naspers holds a 41 per cent stake, has set a target to achieve revenue from its e-commerce operations of $7.3-$7.5 billion in its 2026 financial year, it said in a presentation to investors on Wednesday. Prosus also plans to increase its e-commerce adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (aEBITDA) to $1.1-$1.2 billion. In fiscal year of 2025, the e-commerce revenue came in at $6.2 billion, while adjusted EBITDA for the period reached $655 million. The new targets come as Prosus is transforming from an investment firm into a company that runs its own businesses, focused on lifestyle-ecommerce, within its key markets of Latin America, India and Europe. "We are confident that the company can keep growing", CEO Fabricio Bloisi said during its Capital Markets Day event. Prosus expects to double its revenue in the three years between 2025 and 2028, and increase its adjusted EBITDA by "more than three and half times" over the same period. "Our expectation is to double the revenue between 2025 and 2028. So it means around $12.5 billion(of revenue)", he added. The firm is also expecting increased dividend proceedings from media conglomerate Tencent, in which it holds around 24 per cent stake, to grow by 24 per cent year-on-year to $1.2 billion. Shares in Prosus were up 0.2 per cent at 1003 GMT. Late February, the company agreed to buy Just Eat Takeaway for 4.1 billion euros ($4.72 billion) in a deal it said would create a "European tech champion" of food delivery. The company on Wednesday reiterated its ambition to become the leading European tech company. "There is a clear space and opportunity for real big tech outside the U.S. We want to be the largest European company", said Bloisi, referring to Prosus' goal of achieving a market value above $200 billion.
Zawya
4 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
South Africa: Naspers lifts core earnings by 46% as e-commerce profitability surges
Technology investor Naspers reported a significant improvement in its financial performance for the year ended 31 March 2025, driven by strong growth and improved profitability in its global e-commerce portfolio. Group core headline earnings rose 46% to $3.1bn, while adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) turned positive at $130m, compared to a $154m loss in the prior year. Revenues increased 20% year-on-year to $7.2bn. E-commerce revenues grew 21% to $7.0bn, with adjusted EBIT surging to $430m from $24m. Key units delivered strong gains, including food delivery business iFood (aEBIT up 178%), classifieds (aEBIT up 61%), and online retailer eMAG, which achieved profitability. Free cash flow, excluding Tencent contributions, improved by $263m. Naspers also invested $7.8bn over the year to expand its regional ecosystems and support AI-driven startups. Locally, Takealot Group continued to lead South Africa's e-commerce sector, with a 26-fold growth in gross merchandise value over nine years. Classified platforms AutoTrader and Property24 also recorded steady usage and market traction. The group's performance supports its ongoing transition into a more operationally focused technology company, with continued investment in platforms across Latin America, Europe and India.
