{"id":295446,"date":"2019-01-27T06:58:34","date_gmt":"2019-01-27T04:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=295446"},"modified":"2019-01-27T06:58:34","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T04:58:34","slug":"naspers-sees-single-global-classifieds-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/295446\/naspers-sees-single-global-classifieds-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Naspers sees single global classifieds strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Naspers Ltd will focus on consolidating technologies and harnessing artificial intelligence across its e-commerce business after taking full control of Russia\u2019s largest classified advertising platform in a $1.1 billion deal.<\/p>\n

Africa\u2019s biggest company by market value on Friday announced it bought out minority shareholders in Avito BB through its classifieds business OLX Group, increasing exposure to Russia\u2019s e-commerce market and strengthening its global position in the sector.<\/p>\n

The plan is to consolidate the different local platforms into a single global one, Naspers chief executive officer for Classifieds Martin Scheepbouwer said by phone on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key task at hand is to consolidate our technology,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to share technology, artificial intelligence and data efforts to have solutions work across the business globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Online Transformation<\/h3>\n

Naspers has transformed itself from a newspaper publisher into a $98 billion media empire by pushing into e-commerce, holding stakes in Russian internet group Mail.Ru Group Ltd and Chinese social network firm Tencent Holdings Ltd.<\/p>\n

In the nine months prior to the Avito deal, it spent $718 million on acquisitions and investment in the classified sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cExchanging technology, exchanging people was quite difficult until this deal,\u201d Scheepbouwer said. \u201cPotentially we could take Avito to other countries, but the key focus is to integrate technology and leverage scale of our classifieds business under the OLX umbrella.\u201d<\/p>\n

In aggregate, Naspers\u2019s classifieds business is now profitable, he said. The division is worth as much as $10 billion, excluding the latest Russian deal, according to an analyst\u2019s report by Barclays.<\/p>\n

The deal is also a further step in reducing an almost $28 billion gap between its market value and that of the 31 percent stake it holds in Tencent. Naspers earlier this week said it will list pay-TV unit MultiChoice on the JSE on Feb. 27, spinning off a business it developed over decades.<\/p>\n

Separately listing Avito isn\u2019t an option for time being, Scheepbouwer said. \u201cStrategically Avito is very well integrated and a stand-alone IPO looks fairly unattractive.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Read: Naspers makes R9.5 billion investment in Swiggy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naspers Ltd will focus on consolidating technologies and harnessing artificial intelligence across its e-commerce business after taking full control of Russia\u2019s largest classified advertising platform in a $1.1 billion deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":213869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[26,107],"class_list":["post-295446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-headline","tag-naspers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295450,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295446\/revisions\/295450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}