Prosus' ecommerce strategy delivering results across LatAm, Europe and India

Prosus' strategy to build the #1 lifestyle ecommerce ecosystems in LatAm, Europe and India is delivering results, fuelling growth, and unlocking synergies across the Naspers subsidiary's businesses, said CEO Fabricio Bloisi.

"We have been disciplined and it is paying off with all of our core businesses now profitable. I am very optimistic about our profitability improvement over time," Bloisi said in a year-end update.

The positive update saw Prosus' share price increase 1.48% to R1 062.16 on the JSE Friday morning, while Naspers' share price was up a sturdy 2.44% to R1 112.45. Naspers and Prosus are major constituents of the JE All Share Index, which was higher by 1.67% at the same time, while another index the FTSE All Share index in London, had increased by only 0.34%.

Bloisi said that in Latin America, substantial synergies were being delivered across the ecosystem. "When we shared our first half results, 5.2% of Despegar's net revenue in Brazil came from iFood. Today, that number has grown to 6.7% — and it will continue to climb. Despegar has also transformed its revenue trajectory in Brazil, while revenue had declined for much of the year before acquisition integration, it has now returned to strong growth," he said.

In November, Despegar's net revenue in Brazil grew by more than 20% year-over-year, while also improving its profitability to above the group's budget. Also in November, it claimed an all-time high in market share in Brazil.

In Europe, the group was moving quickly on synergies with the recent Just Eat Takeaway (JET) acquisition, which is now fully under Prosus's control.

"Roberto Gandolfo has been appointed as CEO and the team is laser-focused on returning JET to growth. Gandolfo was a true force in helping iFood achieve 160 million orders in Brazil... Already a clear near-term plan has been created and communicated to all employees, and we are very confident of quick results," said Bloisi.

This week, in India, Meesho, the largest ecommerce company in India in which Prosus holds an 11.2% stake, had a successful IPO.

"The stock has traded up 50% valuing the company at about $9 billion and Prosus's stake at about $1bn. This is a good start for a company which we expect to continue to grow strongly in India. This is our 4th IPO in India since November 2023," said Bloisi.

Meanwhile, the open-ended share repurchase program on Tencent had been expanded and optimized. In the past two weeks, the buybacks had been accelerated with funding from proceeds of other asset sales this year, thereby increasing the per share exposure to Tencent and the rest of Prosus.

"Tencent is a great company with a great future and we want to be a big part of that future," said Bloisi."While we have accomplished a lot this year, we are still just getting started," he said.

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