Naspers to increase LetGo marketing spend in US

by Christo Volschenk
in Financials / Deals
26 Nov 2016

Naspers released its financial results for the six months to Sept. 30 late on Friday. Members of Naspers management will fill analysts in on the results in a webcast on Monday, after which we’ll post a comprehensive report.

Until then, here are the key numbers.

Group revenue, including the proportionate contributions from associates (such as Tencent, Mail.ru) and joint ventures (such as the JVs with Schibsted), increased 16 percent in H1 of FY2016/17 to $6.8 billion U.S. from H1 of FY2015/16.

The Naspers financial year starts in April and the company reports half-yearly only.

Excluding acquisitions, disposals and currency movements, revenue grew 27 percent. Businesses outside South Africa contributed 80 percent of total revenue – up from 75 percent a year ago.

Core headline earnings grew 31 percent to $914 million U.S..

“We experienced a satisfactory first six months to the financial year,” said Koos Bekker, Naspers chairman. “The e-commerce businesses and Tencent performed well, while video entertainment and print did their best in a pretty tough environment.”

Revenue earned by the internet division, which now accounts for 72 percent of group revenue, were up 30 percent to $4.9 billion U.S.. Trading profit grew 54 percent, driven by Tencent and higher profits (or contracting losses) in many e-commerce businesses. “The group now has 23 profitable e-commerce businesses – up from 18 a year ago,” said CEO Bob van Dijk. “Classifieds delivered strong results across the portfolio, boosted in particular by Avito. Our etail, travel and payments businesses all performed well.”

“The group will continue to invest in long-term opportunities, and seek further promising models within the internet division,” said CFO Basil Sgourdos. “In the U.S., we expect to accelerate LetGo’s development spend, to further strengthen its position,” he said. 

More on Monday.


Christo Volschenk

Christo Volschenk is managing editor of the news on Aimgroup.com and our senior analyst covering Naspers. He brings more than 30 years of experience in business journalism to the team. The last 17 years he focused on classifieds and e-commerce. Apart from working closely with AIM Group, Christo is a freelance journalist, online editor, and translator. Before branching out on his own, he spent 15 years with Naspers in South Africa, where he worked as journalist, economics editor and online project manager. He now spends most his day editing the news reported by 18 colleagues in 18 countries from his base in Stuttgart, Germany.

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