Naspers delivers strong revenue growth with profitable core operations; announces open-ended share repurchase programme
Building on the prior year’s standout performance, the Group’s ecommerce portfolio delivered revenue growth of 49%1 to
Today, Prosus and
Looking ahead, the Group will continue disciplined investment into scaling out growth adjacencies to build bigger and more valuable businesses – they have good traction with consumers and high potential to generate sustainable returns over the long term. Reflecting market realities, investment will be balanced with a focus on reducing costs and driving profitability in the core, and setting even higher targets for M&A returns. The Group aims to bring the ecommerce portfolio to profitability in aggregate and to build significant additional value. Investment in existing businesses and in Prosus and
Headlines1
-
Group revenue up 24% to
US$36.7bn ; Ecommerce revenue grew 49% toUS$10.7bn with profitability in core operations. -
US$6.2bn invested to accelerate growth and scale adjacent opportunities; accordingly, overall Group trading profit reduced by 6% toUS$5bn . -
Core Headline Earnings down 16% to
US$2.1bn reflecting a lower contribution from Tencent, post the Group’s sale of 2% of its holdings in Tencent, increased investment in growth adjacencies and strategic M&A, and higher finance costs. -
Board and management focused on growing NAV and NAV per share over time:
- Investing for growth and value creation across the portfolio
US$6.2bn share repurchase executed during the year- Announced start of open-ended share repurchase programme.
-
Disposal of JD.com shares concluded, raising proceeds of approximately
US$3.7bn to enhance the Group’s credit profile and liquidity. - Going forward, the Group will continue to build valuable companies and remains committed to better evidencing, and crystallising, the value of the Group’s ecommerce portfolio.
1 Growth percentages shown in local currency terms, adjusted for acquisitions and disposals.
“In FY22, we delivered strong growth and scale across our businesses, positioning them for continued growth. We invested in our segments and strategic M&A over the year, reflecting our belief in the potential of the businesses we are building. Looking ahead, we will seek to regularly crystallise the value that we are creating. Today, we have announced an open-ended share repurchase programme that will efficiently unlock value for shareholders and increase NAV per share at scale.”
Group performance23
Group results |
FY2022 |
FY2021 |
YoY change |
Revenues |
|
|
24% |
Trading profit |
|
|
-6% |
Core headline earnings |
|
|
-16% |
Ecommerce portfolio results |
|||
Revenues |
|
|
49% |
Trading loss |
|
|
-<100% |
Classifieds |
|||
Revenues |
|
|
92% |
Trading profit |
|
|
-32% |
Food |
|||
Revenues |
|
|
77% |
Trading loss |
|
|
-84% |
Payments & Fintech |
|||
Revenues |
|
|
45% |
Trading loss |
|
|
13% |
Education technology |
|||
Revenues |
|
|
55% |
Trading loss |
|
|
-<100% |
“Ecommerce revenues were up 49% and this performance is set against a stand-out performance in the prior year and significant global volatility. The macro-economic and severe geopolitical challenges in the second half of the year have presented significant headwinds. But our operations remain strong, and with improved profitability at the core, we are investing to scale into adjacent opportunities across our segments. We believe that growth from the autos transaction businesses in Classifieds, broader on-demand delivery ecosystem in Food Delivery, credit and digital banking in Payments & Fintech, and new investments in Edtech will create significant value for the Group over time.”
“As part of our strategy to optimise our capital allocation, we purchased
2 Group results shown on economic-interest basis (i.e., including a proportionate consolidation of the contribution from associates and joint ventures). All growth percentages shown in this media release are shown in local currency terms, adjusted for acquisitions and disposals.
3 To reconcile revenue on an economic interest basis, with total consolidated revenue, see note 4, on page 30 of the
Strong and consistent performance in ecommerce
Ecommerce revenues grew 49% to
Classifieds, as well as core payments, remain profitable, with trading profit of profitable ecommerce businesses increasing 17% to
With strong operational execution, good consumer traction, and improving profitability in core operations, the Group increased investment to pursue opportunities for each segment. Extending into complementary adjacencies, areas of enhanced investment included autos transactions, credit and digital banking, and food, convenience, and grocery delivery. Ecommerce losses of
A detailed breakdown of the Net Asset Value of the
Classifieds –
OLX delivered a strong performance for the year, as it expanded its direct-to-consumer autos transactions business and consumer financing, and reshaped its core Classifieds business by scaling pay-and-ship services.
Revenues increased 92% to
OLX Autos scaled operations significantly, with a record 175,000 autos transactions, up 79% on the prior year. In our core Classifieds business, we recorded growth across our key markets, with our monthly app user base rising 7% to 124 million, active listings growing 11% to 174 million and monthly paying listers increasing 10% to 4.1 million.
Food Delivery
Our portfolio of food businesses is present in 57 countries. The segment has delivered good growth, as we continue to leverage our scale, logistics network and capabilities, and strong consumer relationships, which deliver a real competitive advantage. Gross merchandise value (GMV) grew 59%, with order growth of 53%, resulting in an increase in revenue of 77% to
The most significant businesses in the segment are iFood, Delivery Hero, and Swiggy.
iFood, majority-owned by Prosus, grew GMV by 41% and revenue by 29%. iFood’s core restaurant business delivered a trading profit of
Delivery Hero continued to deliver strong growth for its financial year ended
Swiggy has fully recovered from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, growing total orders by 55% and GMV by 76%. Swiggy’s total revenue grew 68%.
Scale and innovation are presenting meaningful opportunities to unlock adjacent business models in grocery delivery and quick commerce. The portfolio’s companies are building grocery delivery businesses on their restaurant delivery platforms, as they capitalise on
the surge in demand from offline to online. While the quick commerce businesses grew orders by 109% and GMV by 207% during the year, the investment in these adjacencies has increased trading losses for the segment by 84%, to
Payments & Fintech – PayU
PayU delivered solid results, with revenue growth across the portfolio. Total payment volume (TPV) reached
The Global Payments Operations, focused mainly in
In
Edtech
Edtech is a significant new segment in the Prosus Ecommerce portfolio. Technology is transforming the education sector and radically increasing access to learning across the world for many millions of people.
The segment grew strongly through the year, with revenue growing 55% to
Reaching more than 500m users across 12 businesses, the segment covers the full span of learning from kindergarten through to grade 12 (K‒12), and beyond, into third- and enterprise-level education. Together, the portfolio’s investments in the workplace learning sector reach 90% of Fortune 100 companies. The reach of our K‒12 focused companies is illustrated by Brainly’s more than 300m monthly users and BYJU’S expansion beyond
The Ventures team targets opportunities with the potential to fuel future waves of growth for the Group; both the Food Delivery and Edtech segments graduated from the Ventures portfolio.
During the financial year, Ventures invested around
South African businesses
Takealot
Media24
Media24 delivered strong results, underpinned by profitability in every part of its business. A recovery over the full year saw revenue increasing by 12% to
Naspers Foundry
Naspers Foundry continues to enable South Africa’s nascent and vibrant tech ecosystem. The Foundry team backs and then supports early-stage tech companies in
Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, CEO, Naspers South Africa, commented:
“The opportunity that technology presents in
Our impact
Early in FY22, we committed to becoming carbon-neutral as a Group, which we achieved through both meaningful reductions and offsets from certified projects around the world that help drive social, economic, and environmental progress in local communities. We are working to reduce our corporate and group GHG footprint and decouple our operations and businesses from fossil fuels use, while setting groupwide, science-based multiyear targets that will drive our net-zero pathway. This is in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement goal of keeping global warming to 1.5°C.
We continue to improve on our ESG reporting and transparency standards. In
Through technology investments, we are also able to encourage entrepreneurs focused on solutions to help others. For example, assistive technologies can create barrier free access to people living with disabilities. In
For full details of the Group’s results, please visit www.naspers.com.
About
Established in 1915,
In
For more information, please visit www.naspers.com
Naspers Foundry
In 2019,
Response to COVID-19
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220626005075/en/
Head of Investor Relations Tel: +1 347-210-4305
Email: eoin.ryan@naspers.com
Shamiela Letsoalo
Media Relations, South Africa Mobile: +27 78 802 6310
Email: shamiela.letsoalo@naspers.com
Media Relations, International Mobile: +31 615 494 359
Email: charlie.pemberton@naspers.com
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