{"id":861656,"date":"2026-06-06T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=861656"},"modified":"2026-06-05T14:01:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:01:23","slug":"chinese-tech-giant-worth-r8-2-trillion-that-south-africans-can-buy-at-a-discount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/technology\/861656\/chinese-tech-giant-worth-r8-2-trillion-that-south-africans-can-buy-at-a-discount\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese tech giant worth R8.2 trillion that South Africans can buy at a discount"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Naspers and Prosus offer an attractive entry into the Chinese technology giant Tencent, with investment analysts bullish on the stocks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naspers is one of South Africa’s most valuable companies and owns local assets including Takealot, Media24, Autotrader, and many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Netherlands-based Prosus then houses the international assets of Naspers, which include a large stake in Tencent, which is crucial for the company’s wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a notoriously complex transaction, Naspers and Prosus previously had a cross-ownership structure in which they owned large stakes in each other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationship was simplified in 2023, with Naspers owning around 57% of the economic interest in Prosus, while Prosus no longer owns shares in Naspers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naspers has a market cap of around R642 billion, while Prosus has a market cap of 85 billion euros (R1.6 trillion). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A large portion of Naspers and Prosus’ wealth is tied to their stake in Tencent, which they acquired in 2001 for $32 million, gaining a 46% stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This investment turned into a masterstroke, with Tencent becoming one of the world’s leading technology companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tencent is the world’s largest video game publisher, owning stakes in Riot Games, Epic Games, and Supercell. The company also owns WeChat and the instant messaging platform QQ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tencent now has a market cap of HK$ 3.96 trillion (R8.2 trillion). Naspers and Prosus have gradually reduced their stake in Tencent to around 23%, but still offer a discount to the Chinese giant at current share prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naspers’ most recent financial results for the six months ended 30 September 2026 were somewhat positive, with the company’s consolidated revenue increasing 20% to US$4.1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s earnings from continuing operations increased to US$2.4 billion from US$2.0 billion in the prior period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This rise in earnings from continuing operations was primarily due to higher profitability in consolidated and equity-accounted results, driven by Tencent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was also a gain following a small disposal of Tencent. On a total operations basis, Naspers’ earnings per share rose 36.53% to $0.299.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as reported by Reuters<\/a>, Tencent’s first-quarter results were below analyst expectations due to higher AI spending and an increasingly crowded market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tencent’s stock has dropped sharply since the start of the year amid earnings misses, stricter Chinese regulations, and tensions between China and the US, impacting Naspers and Prosus’ share prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts like what they see <\/h2>\n\n\n
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Takealot is one of Naspers’ most well-known investments in South Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Despite Tencent’s recent struggles, analysts in South Africa are incredibly positive about the company’s prospects, making Naspers and Prosus attractive investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking with Business Day TV<\/a>, Robert Towell, Portfolio Manager from Otto1890, picked Naspers and Prosus as his stock pick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you wanted to know which one to pick, Naspers has a slightly larger discount, but really, it’s a Tencent story,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Tencent is buying back its shares, Prosus is buying back its shares, and Naspers is buying back its shares.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that Tencent is really undervalued compared to its peers, and thinks it has a lot of runway left. Thus, a good entry point in the South African market is to buy Naspers and Prosus, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brendan Capstick, Portfolio Manager at Nedbank Private Wealth, also recently picked Prosus as his stock pick when speaking with Business Day TV<\/a>, having previously chosen Naspers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capstick said that his pick comes down to Tencent, noting that the company’s recent Q1 update was pretty solid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that while the market is concerned about the company’s AI spend, he believes it will benefit from that investment in the long run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Tencent is trading at a 13 times forward multiple, which is historically low for them,” Capstick said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Prosus is now trading at a deep discount to net asset value, as well as buying back shares. Prosus is trading at a discount of around 36% to net asset value.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Revenue <\/h2>\n\n\n
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Earnings Per Share<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Share Price <\/h2>\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Investment experts see Naspers and Prosus as good stock picks, given their exposure to Chinese tech giant Tencent. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":861683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9878],"tags":[107,15103,1977],"class_list":["post-861656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-naspers","tag-prosus","tag-tencent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861656","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861656"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861726,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861656\/revisions\/861726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}