Naspers on Tuesday (26 November) reported a 28% rise in revenue to R28.8 billion, for the six months ended September 2013,\u00a0driven\u00a0largely by its Internet businesses and a\u00a0depreciating rand.<\/p>\n
The group noted that expanding its e-commerce and DTT operations resulted in development spend\u00a0accelerating 87% to R3 billion, leading to a 15% drop in trading\u00a0profits, to R1.62 billion.<\/p>\n
Naspers reported a fully diluted headline earnings per N ordinary share of 899 cents, from 800 cents in 2012.<\/p>\n
For its Internet business, Naspers said\u00a0revenues across all platforms grew 76% to R24.9 billion; however, the step-up in development spend in this\u00a0segment resulted in slower trading profit growth of 24% to R3.9 billion.<\/p>\n
Chinese firm, Tencent<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 in which Naspers has a 34% interest \u2013 reported a 70% rise to R15.3 billion, with trading profit up 45% to R5.19 \u00a0billion.<\/p>\n The core businesses made progress in advertising, mobile\u00a0and e-commerce initiatives.<\/p>\n Monthly active instant-messaging accounts were around 816 million, while the combined monthly active users of WeChat and Weixin increased to 272 milliom.<\/p>\n “Given growth opportunities in Chinese e-commerce, Tencent is investing in regional and\u00a0category expansion,” Naspers said.<\/p>\n Mail.ru lifted revenue 50% to R1.1 billion, with trading profit up 60% to R546 million.\u00a0The Mail.ru portal now attracts 33 million unique Russian users and expanded its mobile product offering and audience.<\/p>\n For its e-commerce segment, Naspers said that\u00a0revenues almost doubled to R7.9 billion.\u00a0Development spend was R2.3 billion with trading losses of R1.8 billion.<\/p>\n For pay television, Naspers said this business grew revenues 18% to R17.1 billion. The subscriber base increased by a net 560,000 and now totals 7.3 million households in 48 countries in Africa.<\/p>\n “However, as a consequence of the development of DTT services, trading profits inched\u00a0ahead only 11% to R4.5 billion,” it said.<\/p>\n Naspers said the print media\u00a0industry continues to experience difficult conditions globally.\u00a0“Overall our print businesses saw flat revenues, but most\u00a0remain profitable due to cost reductions,” it said.<\/p>\n The group’s print segment delivered revenue of R5.6 billion, with trading profit at R214 million, down from R247 million in 2012.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, Naspers cautioned that over the next six months an acceleration of investment into growth areas will\u00a0lower earnings.<\/p>\n “We are building e-commerce platforms, in particular online classifieds. In addition, we are rolling out digital terrestrial\u00a0television (DTT) across many cities in Africa. The pace of investment in these opportunities will accelerate sharply in the\u00a0second half of the current financial year,” the group said.<\/p>\n “We expect development spend to exceed R7 billion for the full financial year to March “As this investment is largely made through the income statement, it will have a dampening effect on both earnings and cash\u00a0flows in the second half of the current financial year and cumulatively, for the year as a whole,” Naspers said.<\/p>\n Naspers announced that Koos Bekker, executive director and CEO, has agreed, at the board’s\u00a0request, to stay in his current post, however, Steve Pacak, executive director and CFO, will retire as CFO on 30 June 2014.<\/p>\n Pacak will remain on the board as a non-executive\u00a0director. Basil Sgourdos, presently CFO of Naspers’s subsidiary MIH Holdings, will succeed Steve Pacak.<\/p>\n Naspers sees earnings up to 20% higher<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nPay-TV<\/h3>\n
Print media<\/h3>\n
\n2014, compared to R4.3 billion last year.”<\/p>\nMore on Naspers<\/h3>\n