South Africa’s Naspers lifts H1 earnings, e-commerce unit robust

Africa’s biggest company by market value, Naspers, reported a jump in half-year profit on Friday, boosted by its internet businesses that include a major stake in China’s Tencent Holdings.

Cape Town-based Naspers, which owns about a third of China’s biggest social network and online entertainment firm, said core headline earnings totalled $914 million, or 212 cents per share, compared with $696 million, or 169 cents per share, a year earlier.

Core headline EPS is Naspers’ main profit measure that strips out non-operational and one-off items.

Shares in the company were 0.7 percent higher at 2,081 rand as of 1414 GMT, outpacing a 0.18 percent gain in Johannesburg’s JSE Top-40 index.