Naspers, which has recently been through a top-level shuffle, saw its top line benefit from its Internet investments, as well as a weaker rand, in the year to March.
The group, which is the largest media group outside of the US and China, with a market capitalisation of R529 billion, saw overall revenue gain 26%, to R62.7 billion, while trading profit came in at R3.9 billion.
Revenue from the Internet segment shot up 65%, to R57 billion, bolstered by income from Naspers' investments in Tencent and Mail.ru, as well as its fledgling e-commerce unit, which leapt 64%, to R20.4 billion.
Naspers notes its continued expansion into e-commerce and digital television led to development spend accelerating 79%, to R7.7 billion. "Our Internet activities are rapidly transforming themselves into mobile-focused operations."
Advertising gains
Tencent performed "rather well in a dynamic and highly competitive Chinese market", says Naspers. It notes the shift in user traffic from PC to mobile devices is driving substantial changes across different sectors of the Chinese Internet industry, including communications, social networking, online games, media and e-commerce.
Mail.ru experienced growth across all segments and saw an expansion of contextual advertising revenue as it continued to replace general display ads with targeted advertising, says Naspers.
Naspers' print unit continued its declines, dropping revenue 2%, to R11.7 billion, while trading profit declined 18%, to R606 million. Pay-television, Naspers' second-largest revenue-spinner, gained 20%, to R36.3 billion.
Expanding use
Pay-television remains the most profitable unit for the listed company, growing trading profit 13%, to R8.5 billion, while the Internet unit grew 8%, to R6.6 billion, dragged lower by an increasing loss at its e-commerce unit, which went from a loss of R2.3 billion to R5.3 billion.
Pay-television grew subscribers 1.3 million, taking the base to more than eight million homes across 50 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. "We continue to invest in our online offering, expanding our services on mobile phones, tablets and computers, and launched an improved personal video recorder," says Naspers of the unit.
Naspers, which ended the period with cash and cash equivalents of R18.8 billion, says e-commerce is an expansion area and it incurred development spend of R5.6 billion, leading to the wider trading loss.
The group, which has sent former CEO Koos Bekker to hunt for its next big play, has been focusing on online classifieds, where it owns and operates sites in 40 countries in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
"Progress on this front produced 429 million daily page views across various classifieds sites, an increase of 200%, with mobile traffic and engagement lifting. Several markets evidenced higher traction and growth ahead of competitors. We are stepping up investments to capitalise on this momentum."
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