Prosus posts $617 million ecommerce trading loss, H2 sees improvement

Prosus, one of the world's biggest investors in technology and operators of consumer Internet companies, on Tuesday reported a fall in 2023 profit but said trading had improved in the second half of the year.

Net profit fell to $10 billion from $18.6 billion, mostly due to a worse performance by Chinese software giant Tencent, in which Prosus owns a 26% stake.

Among e-commerce companies Prosus considers part of its core operations, revenue grew by 10% to $5.8 billion, the company said.


Its trading loss in the second half of the year came to $252 million, an improvement from a loss of $365 million in the first half, Prosus said.

It repeated it expects to see trading profits by 2025.

Separately, Prosus announced it is ending a cross-share-holding arrangement with its parent company Naspers of South Africa. Naspers will continue to own a controlling stake in Prosus.

Naspers on Tuesday reported a 78% slump in annual profit, also mainly due to a weaker contribution from China's Tencent.