Naspers Reports Strong Growth and Announces Directorate Change

Naspers Limited announced that the first six months of the financial year have been a successful period for the Group. The operations delivered topline growth of 24%, with consolidated Ecommerce revenue of US$3.3bn, and there was an increased Ecommerce adjusted EBIT by five times to US$169m. They recently celebrated the listing of Swiggy, valued at US$11.3bn, and sold US$2bn+ of assets, including a portion of our Swiggy stake and their Trip.com position. The buyback has created US$36bn of value since launch, with 12% NAV per share accretion, and is the largest globally of any tech company as a portion of market capitalisation. They are actively exploring the immense AI opportunity for their more than 2 billion customers, to accelerate the growth and profitability.

Innovation and reinvention are in our DNA and essential to our success. We are embracing the massive opportunity we see in deploying AI to deliver exceptional products and services to our 2 billion customers. Our future growth will be driven by our AI-first mindset and disciplined investment into building world-class marketplaces, combined with greater collaboration across the ecosystem and our ability to build a winning culture. We are already showing signs of success, with peer-leading growth and rising profitability across our Ecommerce portfolio.

AI is transforming the way we work and how we serve our customers. We have data from billions of transactions across our portfolio that allow us to train AI models to personalise the customer experience and better predict their needs. This is a competitive advantage of our technology ecosystems. I am excited about the huge potential for Naspers – our journey to the next US$100 billion of value is well under way.

– Fabricio Bloisi, Group CEO, Prosus

In the past six months, we’ve made substantial progress delivering on our strategy. Our Group is profitable after corporate costs, and our ongoing share buyback programme continues to create meaningful shareholder value. With Swiggy’s recent IPO, and by actively managing our portfolio through equity stake sales, we’ve highlighted significant pools of value, and we’re confident there’s even more ahead. With our strong and liquid balance sheet, we plan to grow and leverage our ecosystem, with an eye on the next wave of opportunity.

We believe the combination of stronger-performing operating businesses, value creating M&A, and our open-ended share-repurchase programme will continue to drive shareholder returns.

– Ervin Tu, President and CIO, Prosus and Naspers

After 29 years of exemplary leadership and service, Basil Sgourdos will retire as Group Chief Financial Officer, effective 30 November 2024. Nico Marais will assume the role of Interim Chief Financial Officer of Naspers and Prosus. The process to finalise the role of the Group Chief Financial Officer has begun and the market will be advised of this decision in due course.

The board of directors has decided to nominate Mrs Phuti Mahanyele-Dabengwa for appointment as an executive director of Prosus at the next annual general meeting. Mrs Mahanyele-Dabengwa is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Naspers South Africa. She is also an independent nonexecutive director of Vodacom and Discovery Insure. She is a member of the United Nations Global Compact SA board and of the BRICS council. With effect from 1 April 2025, Mrs Mahanyele-Dabengwa is expected to be appointed as an executive director of Naspers Limited.