Prosus N.V. (AEX: PRX) announced strong revenue growth with profitability in core operations for the year ending 31 March 2022.
Building on the prior year’s standout performance, the Group’s e-commerce portfolio delivered revenue growth of 51%1 to US$9.8 billion. This growth resulted from strong operational execution and momentum in all e-commerce segments despite the turbulent environment. While the segments demonstrated core profitability, overall trading profit was lower than last year, reflecting investment in scaling the large adjacent opportunities in the segments, which serve significant consumer needs.
Today, Prosus and Naspers announced the start of an open-ended share repurchase programme of Prosus and Naspers shares. This programme will be funded by regularly selling small numbers of Tencent shares and is designed to efficiently unlock immediate value for shareholders and increase NAV per share over time. The programme will be active as long as the discount to NAV is at elevated levels. Full details are available in the regulatory announcement on the Prosus website.
Looking ahead, the Group will continue disciplined investment into scaling out growth adjacencies to build bigger and more valuable businesses – they have good traction with consumers and high potential to generate sustainable returns over the long term.
Reflecting market realities, investment will be balanced with a focus on reducing costs and driving profitability in the core, and setting even higher targets for M&A returns. The Group aims to bring the ecommerce portfolio to profitability in aggregate and to build significant additional value. Investment in existing businesses and in Prosus and Naspers shares is expected to create significant value for shareholders.
Headlines
- Group revenue up 24% to US$35.6 billion; Ecommerce revenue grew 51% to US$9.8 billion with profitability in core operations.
- US$6.2 billion invested to accelerate growth and scale adjacent opportunities; accordingly, overall Group trading profit reduced by 6% to US$5 billion.
- Core Headline Earnings down 20% to US$3.7 billion reflecting a lower contribution from Tencent, post the Group’s sale of 2% of its holdings in Tencent, increased investment in growth adjacencies and strategic M&A, and higher finance costs.
- Board and management focused on growing NAV and NAV per share over time:
- Investing for growth and value creation across the portfolio
- US$6.2 billion share repurchase executed during the year
- Announced start of open-ended share repurchase programme.
- Disposal of JD.com shares concluded, raising proceeds of approximately US$3.7 billion to enhance the Group’s credit profile and liquidity.
- Going forward, the Group will continue to build valuable companies and remains committed to better evidencing, and crystallising, the value of the Group’s ecommerce portfolio.
“In FY22, we delivered strong growth and scale across our businesses, positioning them
for continued growth. We invested in our segments and strategic M&A over the year,
reflecting our belief in the potential of the businesses we are building. Looking ahead, we
will seek to regularly crystallise the value that we are creating. Today, we have announced
an open-ended share repurchase programme that will efficiently unlock value for
shareholders and increase NAV per share at scale.”
– Bob van Dijk, Group CEO at Prosus and Naspers
Group performance
“E-commerce revenues were up 51% and this performance is set against a stand-out performance in the prior year and significant global volatility. The macro-economic and severe geopolitical challenges in the second half of the year have presented significant headwinds. But our operations remain strong, and with improved profitability at the core, we are investing to scale into adjacent opportunities across our segments. We believe that growth from the autos transaction businesses in Classifieds, broader on-demand delivery ecosystem in Food Delivery, credit and digital banking in Payments & Fintech, and new investments in Edtech will create significant value for the Group over time.
As part of our strategy to optimise our capital allocation, we purchased US$6.2 billion of our own shares, which generated a meaningful enhancement to our NAV per share. We have also been active in the bond markets, raising US$9.3 billion at attractive interest rates. The Group has a strong and liquid balance sheet, bolstered by the recent sale of our JD.com stake and we remain intent on maintaining our investment grade rating. Our solid financial footing positions us well for the challenging operating environment and the execution of our strategy.”
– Basil Sgourdos, Group CFO at Prosus and Naspers
Strong and consistent performance in ecommerce
E-commerce revenues grew 51% to US$9.8 billion, with robust growth across all key segments. This performance was led by 93% growth in Classifieds, 77% growth in Food Delivery, 55% growth in Edtech and 45% growth in Payments & Fintech.
Classifieds, as well as core payments, remain profitable, with trading profit of profitable e-commerce businesses increasing 17% to US$493 million.
With strong operational execution, good consumer traction, and improving profitability in core operations, the Group increased investment to pursue opportunities for each segment. Extending into complementary adjacencies, areas of enhanced investment included autos transactions, credit and digital banking, and food, convenience and grocery delivery.
Ecommerce losses of US$1.1 billion reflect this investment. Approximately 65% of this loss is from associates within our investment portfolio and does not have a cash impact on the Group.
A detailed breakdown of the Net Asset Value of the Prosus portfolio, based on market consensus estimates, is on the Prosus website here.
Classifieds – OLX Group
OLX delivered a strong performance for the year, as it expanded its direct-to-consumer autos transactions business and consumer financing, and reshaped its core Classifieds business by scaling pay-and-ship services.
Revenues increased 93% to US$3.0 billion. OLX Autos contributed significantly to growth, with revenue of US$1.6 billion, up 173% year-on-year. Trading profit increased slightly on the previous year at US$25 millio.
OLX Autos scaled operations significantly, with a record 175,000 autos transactions, up 79% on the prior year. In our core Classifieds business, we recorded growth across our key markets, with our monthly app user base rising 7% to 124 million, active listings growing 11% to 174 million and monthly paying listers increasing 10% to 4.1 million.
Food Delivery
Our portfolio of food businesses is present in 57 countries. The segment has delivered good growth, as we continue to leverage our scale, logistics network and capabilities, and strong consumer relationships, which deliver a real competitive advantage. Gross merchandise value (GMV) grew 59%, with order growth of 53%, resulting in an increase in revenue of 77% to US$3.0 billion.
The most significant businesses in the segment are iFood, Delivery Hero, and Swiggy.
iFood, majority-owned by Prosus, grew GMV by 41% and revenue by 29%. iFood’s core
restaurant business delivered a trading profit of US$10 million.
Delivery Hero continued to deliver strong growth for its financial year ended 31 December
2021, with order growth of 57% and GMV increasing 62% to €35.4 billion.
Swiggy has fully recovered from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, growing total orders by 55% and GMV by 76%. Swiggy’s total revenue grew 68%. Scale and innovation are presenting meaningful opportunities to unlock adjacent business models in grocery delivery and quick commerce.
The portfolio’s companies are building grocery delivery businesses on their restaurant delivery platforms, as they capitalise on the surge in demand from offline to online. While the quick commerce businesses grew orders by 109% and GMV by 207% during the year, the investment in these adjacencies has increased trading losses for the segment by 84%, to US$724 million.
Payments & Fintech – PayU
PayU delivered solid results, with revenue growth across the portfolio. Total payment volume (TPV) reached US$78.5 billion, up 47%, on the back of faster digitisation across PayU’s markets.
Revenues grew 45% to US$796 million, reflecting the strong performance in the India payments business and a strong recovery in credit. TPV in India grew 66%, to US$43.8 billion and revenues increased 49% to US$304 million, driven by merchant diversification. The core payments business remains profitable, with a trading profit of US$43 million and a trading profit margin of 7%.
The Global Payments Operations, focused mainly in Europe and Latin America, delivered good growth. TPV grew 30% and revenues were up 29% to US$341 million. In August 2021, the acquisition of BillDesk in India for US$4.7 billion was announced. Subject to regulatory approval, this would create a global top 10 online payments provider and the opportunity to expand deeper into credit and digital banking in India.
Edtech
Edtech is a significant new segment in the Prosus E-commerce portfolio. Technology is transforming the education sector and radically increasing access to learning across the world for many millions of people.
The segment grew strongly through the year, with revenue growing 55% to US$425 million. Trading losses increased to US$117 million, reflecting acquisitions and increased investment within the segment. During the year, the portfolio was expanded through strategic M&A, including a substantial stake in Skillsoft, the acquisition of Stack Overflow, and a controlling stake in GoodHabitz.
Reaching more than 500 million users across 12 businesses, the segment covers the full span of learning from kindergarten through to grade 12 (K‒12), and beyond, into third- and enterprise-level education.
Together, the portfolio’s investments in the workplace learning sector reach 90% of Fortune 100 companies. The reach of our K‒12 focused companies is illustrated by Brainly’s more than 300 million monthly users and BYJU’S expansion beyond India during the year.
Prosus Ventures
The Ventures team targets opportunities with the potential to fuel future waves of growth the Group; both the Food Delivery and Edtech segments graduated from the Ventures portfolio.
During the financial year, Ventures invested around US$900 million in 50 closed transactions across 34 companies. With more than 35 companies, the portfolio includes investments in the logistics, ecommerce, fintech, blockchain, agtech and sustainability sectors, among others.
More than US$800 million has been invested in India, reflecting the innovation and potential of that market.
Our impact
Prosus is building a portfolio of asset-light, low carbon business models that enable us to combine our global reach with specialist and local expertise. Its businesses deliver positive impact for society and the planet by using technology to improve everyday life for billions of people. Examples include enabling a wider systemic transition to the circular economy, broader financial inclusion, improved access to education, and facilitating livelihoods.
Early in FY22, we committed to becoming carbon-neutral as a Group, which we achieved through both meaningful reductions and offsets from certified projects around the world that help drive social, economic, and environmental progress in local communities. We are working to reduce our corporate and group GHG footprint and decouple our operations and businesses from fossil fuels use, while setting groupwide, science-based multiyear targets that will drive our net-zero pathway. This is in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement goal of keeping global warming to 1.5°C.
We continue to improve on our ESG reporting and transparency standards. In May 2022 we were included as one of the 25 constituents of the recently announced AEX ESG Index on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. We are also included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index Europe.
Through technology investments, we are also able to encourage entrepreneurs focused on solutions to help others. For example, assistive technologies can create barrier free access to people living with disabilities. In India, where there are more than 70m differently abled people, the Prosus Social Impact Challenge for Accessibility (SICA) provides an annual grant and mentorship to Indian start-ups with the most innovative and promising solutions in the assistive technology space. Launched in 2020, the winners of SICA 2021 were
announced in December 2021.
For full details of the Group’s results, please visit the Prosus website.
Annual Results Announcement
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