All the companies Naspers owns

Naspers’ empire extends from its ecommerce and media holdings in South Africa to indirect ownership of some of the world’s biggest game studios.

The company announced its annual financial results on Monday, reporting a 24% revenue increase to $36.7 (R581.3 billion) for the period 1 April 2021 – 31 March 2022.

Its ecommerce portfolio delivered revenue growth of 49% to $10.7 billion (R169.5 billion).

Naspers said this growth resulted from strong operational execution and momentum in all ecommerce segments despite the turbulent environment.

“This performance is set against a stand-out performance in the prior year and significant global volatility,” said Prosus and Naspers CFO Basil Sgourdos.

“The macro-economic and severe geopolitical challenges in the second half of the year have presented significant headwinds.”

Sgourdos said their operations remain strong.

“With improved profitability at the core, we are investing to scale into adjacent opportunities across our segments,” he said.

Naspers said it would continue disciplined investment into scaling out these growth adjacencies to build bigger and more valuable businesses.

“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 merger & acquisition returns,” the company said.

“While the segments demonstrated core profitability, overall trading profit was lower than last year, reflecting investment in scaling the large adjacent opportunities in the segments, which serve significant consumer needs.”

Naspers said it aims to bring its ecommerce portfolio to profitability and build significant additional value.

From newspapers, to pay-TV, to Internet giant

Naspers was founded in 1915 as news media company “Die Nasional Pers”.

Its first publication was the De Burger newspaper in 1915, which remains in print as Die Burger in the Cape provinces.

The following year it began publishing De Huisgenoot, which is still in publication as the Huisgenoot magazine.

Naspers invested in several print and publishing companies after entering the book publishing market in 1918.

It acquired Human & Rousseau, JL van Schaik, and Drum Publications — the publishers of City Press and Drum magazine.

From 1986, Naspers started looking beyond news and print media, co-founding Electronic Media Network (M-Net), the pay-TV broadcaster that would ultimately grow into MultiChoice.

Naspers spun out MultiChoice into a separate listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on 27 February 2019.

Naspers founded News24 and Kalahari.net in 1998.

It would go on to acquire Takealot and merge the two companies in 2015.

Through the acquisition, Naspers would also gain clothing retailer Superbalist, and Mr Delivery (now Mr D) and its substantial logistics network.

Takealot later launched the Mr D Food app to compete with Uber Eats in South Africa.

In 2001, it paid $32 million, around R260 million at the time, for a 46.5% share in Tencent.

This would prove to be one of the most successful venture capital investments of all time.

Even after disposing of a substantial portion of its Tencent investment, Naspers recently reported its 29% holding in the Chinese Internet and media giant is worth around $132.3 billion (R2.096 trillion).

Naspers spun out its international ecommerce and media investments, including its Tencent stake, into a separate company called Prosus.

When Prosus listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange, it immediately became the biggest Internet company in Europe.

Through Prosus, Naspers holds a 99% stake in the OLX Group, which owns AutoTrader and Property24 in South Africa.

Naspers Foundry

In addition to its holdings in Takealot and Media24, Naspers continues to invest in South African businesses through Naspers Foundry.

“The Foundry team backs and then supports early-stage tech companies in South Africa to help them achieve their full potential,” Naspers stated.

Between April 2021 and March 2022, Naspers Foundry has invested nearly R350m in seven promising technology companies since April 2021:

• Mobility technology company WhereIsMyTransport — R45 million
• Digital insurance advice platform Ctrl — R34 million
• South Africa’s first fully digital insurance platform, Naked — R120m
• Car subscription platform Planet42 — R54 million
• On-demand earned wage access platform, Floatpays — R15m
• B2B fresh produce marketplace, Nile — R40m
• Financial advisory platform, LifeCheq — R40m

These seven investments took Naspers Foundry’s portfolio to twelve companies with a combined investment of nearly R700 million since its launch in 2019.

Naspers expects to announce more backing for promising South African tech companies in the coming months.

Tencent, gaming giant

With its stake in Tencent, Naspers has exposure to social networks like WeChat and the global video games industry.

Tencent owns game studios like Riot Games (League of Legends, Valorant), Digital Extremes (Warframe), and Turtle Rock Studios (Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood).

It holds a 40% stake in Epic Games, the creator of the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, and Epic Games Store operator.

Tencent is also an early backer of popular gaming community and voice chat application Discord.

Naspers’ holdings are summarised in the graphics and table below.

Naspers portfolio

Media24 digital

Media24 newspaper

Media24 magazines

OLX Group

Prosus listed asset value

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