South Africa's Naspers posts 18 pct rise in annual profit

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African ecommerce and media group Naspers reported an 18 percent rise in full-year profit on Friday, lifted by growth in its Internet business, which includes a stake in China's Tencent Holdings. Naspers, which owns 34 percent of the Chinese social network and online entertainment firm, said fully diluted core headline earnings per share (EPS) rose to 292 US cents for the year ended March, from 249 cents a year earlier. Headline EPS is the main profit measure in South Africa and strips out certain one-off items. Africa's largest company by market value, Naspers has transformed itself from an apartheid-era publisher into a $65 billion Internet powerhouse by focusing on e-commerce in emerging markets. Revenue grew 6 percent to $12.2 billion, driven by growth from Tencent and from ecommerce on the back of revenue growth in classifieds, travel and retail, Naspers said in a statement. "In some sectors of ecommerce we are starting to benefit from scale," said Naspers' Chairman Koos Bekker in a statement. But the firm's video entertainment unit, which does most of its sales in Africa, weighed on the rest of the business as revenue fell 11 percent due to weaker currencies and a loss of subscribers. Bekker said the unit is under "considerable pressure". Naspers bills its pay-television customers in local currencies, most of which have slumped as commodity prices fell last year, shrinking its revenue in dollar terms, the company said. "It could take some time before the plans implemented to reinvigorate growth and cut costs have a material positive impact," Naspers said. The company released its results after the close of trade on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange. (Reporting by TJ Strydom; Editing by Susan Fenton)