Naspers Ltd. history, profile and corporate video
Naspers Ltd. provides television platform, print media, internet services, technology products and book publishing. It operates through three segments: Pay-Television, Internet and Print. The Pay-Teleision segment offers digital content management and protection systems to customers globally to protect, manage and monetise all digital media on any platform. The Internet segment includes ecommerce, communication, social networks, entertainment and mobile value-added services. The Print segment publishes magazines, newspapers and books. This segment also includes printing and distribution. Naspers was founded on May 12, 1915 and is headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa.“
“Naspers History
Naspers was founded as Die Nasionale Pers (Afrikaans for “The National Press”) on 12 May 1915. At first it only published a newspaper, De Burger (from 1922: Die Burger), but soon expanded and in 1916 published its first magazine De Huisgenoot. D F Malan, a former minister in the conservative Dutch Reformed Church was persuaded to become editor and was the main supporter of Hertzog’s National Party. In 1918 the company took a further step towards expansion when its book publishing operations were founded as De Burger Boekhandel. Piet Cillié, editor of Die Burger from 1954 until 1985 was a staunch supporter of the National Party, under B J Vorster and P W Botha. Cillié upheld the apartheid system through many pro-segregation editorials until the very end.
In 1985, Nasionale Pers and a number of other South African media companies formed an electronic pay-television media business,M-Net, which was listed on the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) in 1990. In 1993, M-Net was divided into two companies: M-Net itself became a pure pay-television station while the company’s subscriber management, signal distribution and cellular telephone activities were formed into a new company called MultiChoice Limited (later renamed MIH Holdings Limited).
Nasionale Pers itself listed on JSE on 12 September 1994 and in 1998 the group’s name changed to Naspers.
In 1997, MIH Ltd. created an internet service provider, M-Web Holdings, which also runs M-Web Blogspace, a popular South African blogging platform.
In September 1999, Naspers purchased a 49% share holding in EvaluNet and then in January 2000, merged its existing private education activities with that of another leading South African private education business to form Educor Holdings Limited, one of the leading private education providers in South Africa. During the same year, Naspers also re-organised and branded its print media business as its “Media24” division.
In May 2001, Naspers acquired a 46.5% interest in Tencent Holdings Limited, the operator of an instant messaging platform in China called QQ, which subsequently developed into the leading business of its kind in China. In a quest to further expand its business in China, the company acquired a 9.9% interest in the Beijing Media Corporation (“BMC”) in December 2004. BMC is a media company mainly engaged in the sale of advertising space for the Beijing Youth Daily as well as the production of newspapers and the trading of print-related materials.
In February 2005, Naspers acquired the South African internet interests of Tiscali. On 31 March of the same year, Naspers consolidated all its print media, book publishing and private education assets in its Media24 division in order to simplify the group’s structure.
In May 2006, Naspers acquired, for $422 million US, a 30% interest in the Brazilian media group Editora Abril, publishers of dozens of titles, the most important of which beingRevista Veja.
In January 2007, Naspers acquired a 30% interest in MXit Lifestyle (Pty) ltd (has been rebranded as “Mxit (Pty) ltd”), the operator of a mobile instant messaging platform in South-Africa called Mxit.
Also in January 2007, Naspers acquired a 30% interest in Mail.ru, Russian operator of Mail.ru Agent, an instant messaging service for desktop PCs and mobiles. In November 2007 the company acquired a further 2.6% of Mail.ru .
In October 2007, Naspers acquired Gadu-Gadu, a listed Polish instant messaging business with c.8 million registered accounts (of a population of 38 million).
In March 2008, Naspers acquired Tradus (formerly QXL and listed on the London Stock Exchange), which provides an online auction platform and internet portals in Central and Eastern Europe. The company owns Allegro.pl, which is the leading online auction site in Poland. At £946 million, this acquisition represents Naspers’ largest acquisition to date.
In August 2008, Naspers acquired a 25% stake in BuzzCity through MIH, its investment arm. BuzzCity is a mobile media company providing access to a global advertising network on the mobile internet for brand owners and agencies. The network is made up of publishers worldwide and BuzzCity’s own mobile media properties, including the myGamma social networking platform which is aimed at regions with low fixed-line internet penetration.
In September 2008, Naspers acquired a 49% interest in Compera nTime, mobile value-added services company in Brazil. During 2010 Compera nTime acquired a competitor Yavox. The enlarged group has been renamed Movile. Having Brazil as its core market, Movile is also present in Mexico, and is expanding to other Latin-American countries.
In August 2009, it was announced that Naspers would increase its stake in BuzzCity by MIH purchasing US$1 million of shares from Exploit Technologies, the marketing and commercialisation arm of A*STAR.
In September 2009, Naspers acquired a 91% interest in BuscaPé, provider of comparison shopping systems for more than 100 portals and Web sites in Latin America, including Microsoft, Globo and Abril.
In September 2011, Naspers sold its 30% interest in MXit lifestyle to South African investment group World of Avatar.
In July 2012, Naspers acquired 70% interest in eMAG, one of the biggest ecommerce sites in Romania. Two of the actual managers of eMAG will keep their positions and will acquire 21.6% and 8.4% from company share. In Romania, Naspers also owns PayU Romania, online platforms autovit.ro, mercador.ro, compari.ro and Fashion Days is one of the shareholders. CEO Koos Bekker discloses that he owns R6bn in shares. His annual remuneration is in the region of R680million.
In November 2012, Naspers took a significant minority stake in Souq.com, the leading Ecommerce portal in the Middle East) and in CashU, the leading E-Payments firm in the Middle East and North Africa.
In March 2013, Naspers acquired a 50 percent stake in Konga.com.”
*Information from Forbes.com and Wikipedia.org
**Video published on YouTube by “Naspers Limited“