Prosus Classifieds Division Sees Consolidated Revenue Increase 32%

The internet giant Prosus has posted its results for the first half its 2024 financial year. Highlights from the company's performance for the six months ended September 30th 2023 include:

• Consolidated revenue in the classifieds segment of $342 million, up 32% year-on-year.
• Classifieds consolidated trading profit of $94 million at a 27.5% margin.
• Buyer adoption of the 'pay and ship' option in horizontal marketplaces was up 34%.

Prosus is the Amsterdam-headquartered company that was spun off from the South African publishing giant Naspers in 2019 with the aim of running all of the company's internet assets. Those assets include a wide array of interests spanning food delivery, FinTech, education and a stake in the Chinese internet giant Tencent as well as online classifieds.

Prosus Classifieds Assets

Revenue growth for Prosus' online classifieds division during the period was driven mainly by OLX in Europe which is particularly strong in the Polish market. The company noted in its reporting that OLX Europe was "well placed for margin expansion" despite the challenges created by the war in Ukraine.

An increase in profit was largely attributed to the wind-down and divestment from the company's OLX Autos business which had been trading at a significant loss for several years prior to sale earlier this year.

In Brazil, where Prosus runs OLX Brasil as a joint venture with Adevinta, revenue was up only 2% in local currency terms. This was chalked up to "a weaker economic environment and a decline in advertising revenues".

The past 12 months have seen a great deal of upheaval in the online classifieds portfolio of the Naspers-related firm.

In October 2022 Prosus sold Russian classifieds giant Avito for a reported $2.5 billion after coming under heavy pressure to do so. Avito generated 48 billion Rubles ($559 million) in revenue in FY21 at a 34% trading profit margin.

Prosus has also decided to sell off or wind down all of its OLX Autos businesses around the world having been "materially affected by macroeconomic and market challenges... similar to listed peers". The auto business made a trading loss of $418 million in FY23.

In February Prosus announced 1,500 job losses across its classifieds division aimed at reducing losses.