Bob van Dijk, the newly-appointed, CEO of JSE-listed media giant, Naspers, is poised to change $52 billion Naspers into a mainly mobile firm.
This is according to Reuters, which has reported that the firm is also considering bringing its group of e-commerce and auction sites to “tablets and smartphones.”
Naspers was also looking at making acquisitions of e-commerce firms in the future, van Dijk said.
“We will be more of an operator in the Internet than we have been … the most exciting part is adjusting ourselves to be predominantly a mobile company,” van Dijk told Reuters.
“It’s really hard to comment on future M&A, but I think focus-wise, e-commerce will be very important for us,” he continued.
Van Dijk joined Naspers in April, replacing Koos Bekker who resigned after nearly two decades at the helm of Naspers.
His reign was characterised by fiery growth, turning the Cape Town-based Naspers into one of the world’s most valuable media and internet companies.
In late May, Naspers its profits for the year ended March this year were robust, boosted by growth in its internet and pay television businesses.
The Johannesburg listed media firm said revenues during the period under review surged 26 percent to R62.7 billion ($5.8 billion).
“This growth was fuelled by development spend of R7.7 billion ($722.5 million) – up 79 percent on last year – devoted particularly to ecommerce and digital terrestrial television (DTT),” Naspers said.
“As previously cautioned, this expansionary spend had the effect of limiting core earnings to R8.6 billion ($807 million), approximately the same as last year,” the firm continued.
Naspers said its reputable operations should continue to be “cash flow positive, profitable and growing.”
The firm’s Chinese and Russian internet businesses, Tencent and Mail.ru, posted robust earnings growth during the period under review.
“Our share of equity-accounted results includes once-off gains of R2.9 billion ($272 million) flowing from Mail.ru’s sale of shares in Facebook and Qiwi, as well as gains from Tencent’s merger of some of its ecommerce businesses with JD.com and the sale of its interest in ChinaVision,” it said.
