After years of losses, Prosus’s e-commerce empire is finally making money

For years, investors looked to Tencent, a Chinese technology giant, for almost all of Prosus’s value while its e-commerce businesses burned cash. Now, the technology investor with deep South African roots says that era may be ending.

In results released on Monday, Prosus reported that all of its operating ecosystems are profitable for the first time, lifting ecosystem adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 84% to $1.3 billion and signalling that its long-running bet on e-commerce is finally paying off.

The performance marks a potential turning point for Prosus, which has spent years investing billions of dollars in food delivery, classifieds, fintech, and ecommerce businesses across emerging markets. While those investments helped build digital platforms spanning Latin America, Europe, and India, investors continued to value the company largely for its stake in Tencent.

With all of its operating ecosystems now profitable, Prosus is seeking to prove that its own businesses can generate sustainable earnings and stand on their own.

The technology investor reported revenue of $9.7 billion for the year ended March 31, 2026, up 57% from $6.2 billion a year earlier. Group EBITDA more than doubled to $1.05 billion from $484 million, while free cash flow rose to $1.5 billion from $1 billion. Core headline earnings, which Prosus uses as a measure of operating performance, increased 13% to $8.3 billion.

“The financial year ended March 2026 marked a milestone for Prosus,” the company said in its statement on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange News Service (SENS). “We delivered on our ambitious targets, generating over US$9.7 billion in revenue and US$1.3 billion in Ecosystem adjusted EBITDA.” Prosus added that “every one of our ecosystems is now profitable, and our free cash flow, excluding Tencent, continues to grow.”

The strong performance was driven largely by the group’s food delivery and online marketplace businesses. Brazilian food delivery giant iFood, one of Prosus’s biggest assets, remained a key growth engine. The company said iFood delivered strong operational performance throughout the year and continued to underpin growth across its Latin American ecosystem.

“Revenue grew 57% to US$9.7bn, driven by strong growth from iFood in LatAm, despite competition increasing meaningfully in the second half of the year, and continued growth from  OLX in Europe,” Prosus said in the SENS statement. Online marketplace business OLX also contributed significantly to the improved performance, helping drive revenue growth and profitability across the group’s European operations.

Recent acquisitions further boosted results. Prosus completed the acquisitions of online travel company Despegar in May 2025 and Dutch food delivery platform Just Eat Takeaway.com (JET) during the financial year. According to the company, Despegar exceeded expectations.

“Our LatAm operations delivered robust results: Despegar exceeded expectations and demonstrated accelerated growth while iFood maintained its strong operational performance in a highly competitive market,” Prosus said.

Prosus also identified JET as a major growth opportunity, although it cautioned that the business would require additional investment and operational improvements over the next 12 to 18 months.

“In Europe, we successfully completed two strategic acquisitions, La Centrale and JET, furthering our regional expansion objectives,” the company said. “JET is a significant growth opportunity that will require investment and enhanced operational capabilities under a strengthened management team.”

Prosus still reported an operating loss of $173 million despite the sharp improvement in profitability, compared with an operating profit of $173 million a year earlier. It reflects acquisition-related costs and continued investment in growing its platforms. The results nevertheless strengthen chief executive Fabricio Bloisi’s argument that Prosus is evolving beyond its identity as a technology investment company anchored by Tencent.

Prosus underlined that for much of the past decade, investors valued Prosus primarily for its stake in Tencent, one of the most successful technology investments in history. While Tencent continues to play a central role in Prosus’s earnings, the company increasingly wants investors to focus on the profitability of its own operating businesses.

“We have completed our transformation from a traditional holding company into an active operator of AI-driven lifestyle ecosystems across Latin America, Europe and India,” the company said.

True scale demands moving beyond surface-level integrations to robust execution. We’ve filtered the noise out of Moonshot 2026, optimising the conference strictly for high-calibre connections between startup founders, global financial operators, enterprise leaders and individuals rewiring Africa’s technical frameworks.
Get 20% off Early Bird tickets for a limited time.