Naspers Limited Today Announced Its Results for the Year Ended 31 March 2014
June 23 2014 - 3:44AM
Business Wire
Pursuing Further Growth
Naspers (JSE: NPN) today announced financial results for the
year ended 31 March 2014. Consolidated revenue grew a robust 26% to
R62,7bn, driven by both internet and pay-television businesses.
Growth was funded mainly by development spend, which accelerated
79% to R7,7bn. This step-up limited core headline earnings,
considered by the board to be an indication of sustainable earnings
performance, to R8,6bn, marginally higher than last year. Core
headline earnings per share amounted to R21,81 and a dividend
increase of 10% to R4,25 per share has been proposed.
“We had a lively year with progress across several businesses,”
said Naspers chair, Ton Vosloo. “Our established businesses
performed very well and we stepped up our investment in new growth
opportunities, particularly in ecommerce.”
Driven by strong growth in etail, revenues from ecommerce
activities increased 64% to R20,3bn. “As this is an area of
expansion, development spend rose as we scaled operations,
increased the number of focus markets in classifieds and
strengthened our talent pool. Consequently the trading loss widened
to R5,3bn,” said Basil Sgourdos, new CFO of the group. The year saw
improving profitability from the Allegro marketplace business and
some classifieds and online price-comparison operations. Several
classifieds markets evidenced growth ahead of competitors.
The pay television business, which covers 50 countries on the
African continent, reported 20% growth in revenues to R36,3bn.
Total subscribers increased by a record 1,3 million, taking the
base to over 8 million homes. Continued expansion of digital
terrestrial (DTT) services, more investment in local content and an
increase in online service offerings resulted in 13% growth in
trading profit to R8,5bn.
The print media remains exposed to challenging global conditions
and experienced a tough year. Revenues were flat and margins
declined.
Naspers’s share of core earnings from associates, including
Tencent in China and Mail.ru Group in Russia, increased by 46% to
R10,2bn.
“Our goal is to invest in growth businesses that will deliver
value over the long term. With this in mind, we will continue to
invest heavily for organic expansion and may also acquire new
businesses within our fields of focus,” said new Naspers CEO, Bob
van Dijk. “Our belief is that, through a combination of attractive
markets with development potential and appealing customer product
offerings such as online classifieds, etail and DTT, we have
realistic, solid prospects for growth and value creation over
time.”
The complete results are available on the Naspers website at
http://www.naspers.com.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
This media release contains forward-looking statements as
defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform
Act of 1995. Words such as “believe,” “anticipate,” “intend,”
“seek,” “will,” “plan,” “could,” “may,” “endeavour” and similar
expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking
statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such
statements. While these forward-looking statements represent our
judgments and future expectations, a number of risks, uncertainties
and other important factors could cause actual developments and
results to differ materially from our expectations. These include
numerous factors that could adversely affect our businesses and
financial performance. We are not under any obligation to (and
expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our
forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise. Investors are cautioned not to place
undue reliance on any forward-looking statements contained
herein.
Naspers LimitedMeloy Horn, Head of Investor
RelationsTel: +27 11 289 3320+27 11 289 4446Mobile: +27 82 772
7123orBasil Sgourdos, Chief Financial OfficerTel: +852 2847
3365Mobile: +852 9080 5155
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