South African internet company Naspers has recorded a 38% increase in ecommerce revenues in its latest financial results released on November 23 2022.
The company, which is the largest in Africa by market capitalization, stated in its release that despite a turbulent period during which industry growth expectations and valuations came under significant pressure, it managed to increase ecommerce revenues and continued organic investment in segments with high growth potential.
Naspers also mentioned that after peaking its investment spend in its ecommerce segment, increasing scale and managing its cost base, it expects improvements in profitability and cash flow generation in the near future. It also expects its consolidated ecommerce portfolio to become profitable in H1 of FY2025.
Naspers Group CEO Bob van Dijk stated, “We have shown strong execution and operational growth through a volatile and challenging time. To further scale our ecommerce businesses, we have made significant organic investment in OLX Autos, credit, convenience delivery and edtech, which will drive sustainable long-term value creation for the Group.”
In other segments of its financial results, Naspers Group revenue was up 9% from $16.8 billion in HY2022 to $17 billion in HY2023. Trading profit was down 38% from $2.8 billion in HY2022 to $1.4 billion in HY2023. As the company announced to shareholders on Monday, the company’s core headline earnings also took a beating, plummeting 51% from HY2022 levels.
The market responded positively to Naspers’ results despite the pummeling it took in trading losses across its various segments. The company share price rose as much as 2% from the opening price and closed the day trading 0.73% more than opening price.
