Media giant Naspers scored a once-off profit of R1.5 billion from Mail.ru's sale of some of its stake in social media network Facebook.
Internet was Naspers' second biggest contributor to revenue in the six months to September, and the group aims to continue expanding its e-commerce arm. In the first half, Naspers says it continued to grow the company, with an "increasing" focus on e-commerce.
Naspers bought a 79% interest in Netretail, an online retailer with operations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, for R1.7 billion during the half-year. "The group continues to grow organically, with an increasing focus on e-commerce," says chairman Ton Vosloo.
Naspers excluded the Facebook profit from core headline earnings in the first half of the year, but said core headline earnings expanded at a faster-than-expected 15% as the group benefited from a weaker rand.
Zooming along
The group will continue with its strategy to build its pay-television subscriber base and expand e-commerce businesses across emerging markets. So far, it has invested R4.5 billion in new e-commerce businesses such as Netretail, Flipkart and eMag.
"During the next six months, we'll keep growing our e-commerce operations across emerging markets," notes CEO Koos Bekker. "We intend to step up the gas and, as a result, development spend will accelerate in the second half of the year."
Pay-television is Naspers' biggest contributor to revenue, at R14.4 billion, followed by the Internet segment at R14.1 billion. The group reported headline earnings of R4.1 billion, and spent R1.6 billion on development costs.
Naspers says that, as it will accelerate development spend in the second half, and focus more on e-commerce, it expects that its trading margins will trend down. Naspers is also developing digital terrestrial television (DTT) services in markets across Africa.
In the first six months, Naspers added 393 000 subscribers in the pay-television segment and now has a base of six million homes. "We continue to upgrade our broadcast infrastructure and expand online services. GOtv, our recently-launched DTT service, is gaining traction," it says.
Locally, the group added 187 000 subscribers to reach 4.2 million homes, with most of the growth coming from its Compact bouquet. It moved the DStv service to the new IntelSat-20 satellite, which provides capacity for new subscriber services and added eight new high-definition channels.
Internet benefited from its associates, Tencent and Mail.ru, which added R3.2 billion to core headline earnings.
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