{"id":734561,"date":"2023-11-29T09:19:44","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T07:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=734561"},"modified":"2023-11-29T09:19:44","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T07:19:44","slug":"big-leap-for-takealot-but-still-no-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/734561\/big-leap-for-takealot-but-still-no-profit\/","title":{"rendered":"Big leap for Takealot – but still no profit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South African online retailer Takealot has managed to narrow its trading losses by a massive 85% – but the group is still not yet profitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also reflected in the group’s owner, listed tech and investment group Naspers’ wider results, where it reported a jump in profit for the six months ended 30 September 2023 (1H24), but operating losses have extended, and its e-commerce segment is not yet in the black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naspers recorded a 9% increase in revenue to $3 billion for the period – however, operating costs ate away at all of this, leaving the group with an operating loss of $426 million (extended from an operating loss of $111 million in the prior year).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s results reflect figures on a “consolidated basis” from continuing operations, which reflects all majority-owned and managed businesses in its portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operating losses rose US$315 million to US$426 million over the period, primarily due to an impairment loss recognised on Edtech investments, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to its share of equity-accounted results and gains made on partial disposals of equity-accounted investments – related to its partial disposal of Tencent<\/strong> – the group managed to claw back to an overall profit for the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group continues to struggle with its e-commerce segment, which is still posting a trading loss. Naspers said it hopes this segment will turn to profit by the second half of the financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-commerce consolidated revenue from continuing operations increased by 10% or US$272 million from US$2.7 billion in the prior period to US$2.9 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This was primarily due to revenue growth in Classifieds, Food Delivery, and Payments and Fintech,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On an economic-interest basis, e-commerce revenue grew 15% to US$5.3 billion and trading losses improved from US$820 million to US$249 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Takealot<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at a more South African context, Takealot continued to post a loss, though it has been reduced significantly from the prior period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takelot’s losses amounted to $2 million for the period (~R at current rates), reduced by 85% from $13 million (~R at current rates) before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takealot\u2019s gross merchandise volume (GMV) was up to $711 million from $700 million before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was up 15% in local currency, Naspers said, but in dollar terms, down by 2%, with the online retailer taking a $91 million hit from the impact of foreign exchange rate changes in the conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Rising interest rates and inflation depressed consumer demand while load shedding created strain,” Naspers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Despite this, Takealot group has managed to reduce its trading losses by a significant 85% when measured in US dollar, excluding any impacts from M&A.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takealot.com continues to grow its marketplace seller base, which reached approximately 10,600 sellers in September 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the Takealot “retail” business, Mr D grew revenue by 11% and GMV by 15% in local currency, excluding M&A. Mr D\u2019s partnership with Pick n Pay, a leading local grocery retailer, continues to scale, Naspers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mamongae Mahlare, Takealot Group CEO said that, while the Takealot Group is not yet profitable at a trading profit level, strong momentum towards profitability has been made through takealot.com\u2019s business operations, which are generating more revenue than they cost to run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is a clear indication that the business health is solid, with profitability at an operating level. The other two businesses – Mr D and Superbalist.com – are on track to do the same at the appropriate point in their development cycle,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Read: Takealot stranglehold spells bad news for South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

E-commerce giant Takealot has made a huge step in the right direction – but is still falling just short of being profitable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":707958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-734561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734561","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":734605,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734561\/revisions\/734605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}