By Najat Kantouar

Prosus, Tencent Holdings' largest shareholder, posted higher revenue and earnings for its fiscal year, boosted by growing profitability at its e-commerce operations and investments in artificial intelligence.

The Amsterdam-listed technology investor said Monday that revenue for the year ended March 31 climbed 21% to $6.2 billion, below analysts' forecast of nearly $6.39 billion, according to FactSet.

Prosus's operations span e-commerce, classifieds, payments and fintech across Europe, Latin America and parts of Asia thanks to investments it makes in other companies. The group commanded a 23.5% stake in Chinese tech giant Tencent at the end of March, according to its annual report.

Earlier this year, Prosus announced plans to buy food-delivery company Just Eat Takeaway.com for $4.29 billion, leveraging the war chest it built by selling part of its Tencent stake to bulk up its food-delivery arm.

"We are making good progress with the purchase of Just Eat Takeaway.com, which will create a new AI-powered tech champion in Europe," Prosus's Chief Executive Fabricio Bloisi said.

The deal is set to create the world's fourth-largest player in food delivery by gross transaction value--a closely watched industry metric--after China's Meituan and U.S. companies DoorDash and Uber Technologies' Uber Eats.

The executive said in an interview last December that AI would play a key role in generating an additional $100 billion in value as the amount of data the group has from transactions represents a competitive advantage for its technology ecosystem.

The technology investor is working on being a global innovator using AI, including more personalization, and the ability to predict customers' needs, among other benefits, he said at the time.

Prosus's e-commerce portfolio, which includes iFood and Delivery Hero and Swiggy, reported a surge in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes for the year to $443 million from $38 million.

Prosus said it hopes to achieve at least the same incremental improvement in adjusted EBIT for e-commerce operations in fiscal 2026.

The group posted adjusted EBIT of $179 million compared with a loss of $118 million a year earlier. Core headline earnings--Prosus's measure of aftertax operating performance--grew 47% to $7.4 billion, lifted by e-commerce operations and Tencent's performance. Net profit for the year jumped to $12.37 billion from $6.61 billion.

The technology investor said it was proposing doubling its dividend 20 European cents. Shares rose 2% on Monday. The stock is up more than 35% over the past 12 months.

Fiscal 2025 marked the first year that Prosus is free cash flow positive, excluding the Tencent dividend, with an improvement of $513 million, finance chief Nico Marais added.

Meanwhile, revenue at its South African parent company Naspers rose to $7.18 billion from $6.43 billion, ahead of a FactSet forecast of $7.14 billion. Naspers logged adjusted EBIT of $130 million compared with a loss of $154 million.

Prosus said it would share more details about its growth prospects at its capital markets day on June 25.

Write to Najat Kantouar at najat.kantouar@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 23, 2025 06:06 ET (10:06 GMT)

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