Welkom Yizani, a broad-based black economic empowerment scheme in the South African media industry, is a 15% shareholder in Media24. 24.com, Media24’s digital media division (which includes brands such as News24, Fin24, and women’s portal W24) grew monthly unique visitors by 35% and revenue by 31% in the financial year to March. Spree saw a 75% increase in orders and 84% in revenue.
Media24 CEO Esmaré Weideman says Media24 is well on its way to transforming from a print media giant to a company built on content, commerce, and technology. "We no longer see ourselves as a legacy media company, but as a media, tech, and e-commerce company," she says.
Its print media operations remain profitable but are facing the same disruptions experienced by media companies around the world, with advertising and circulation declining.
"Some of our print titles remain very profitable, but others are facing structural headwinds. In our publishing businesses, the big job is to ensure that the excellent journalism we produce migrates successfully to the Internet," she adds.
"A free media is critically important in any democracy. We have to protect it and, as a company, we are helping both readers and advertisers move to new platforms. If you think about it, News24 is now the biggest newspaper in South Africa," she says.
Andreij Horn, head of Media24’s digital media operations, says 24.com had 16.7 million unique users a month with a leading 47% market share among South African publishers.
"We are focused on building super brands, with News24 on the English side and Netwerk24 on the Afrikaans side," adds Horn. News24 has nearly 470 000 average users a day and 2.9 million average daily page views, while Netwerk24 – which launched in 2014 – is one of the largest subscription news sites in the country.
Media24 is growing its engineering capacity and has already deployed artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) on new apps such as News24 Edge, a personalised version of News24, as well as aggregator apps Sliced and DailyKick.
Sliced allows users to select their interests and then curates content from local and global sources, while DailyKick pulls together soccer content and news from Soccer Laduma, Daily Sun, Kick Off, and Sport24.
"At Media24, engineers are now as important as journalists," Weideman says. "We now employ one computer scientist for every five editorial staff, where two years ago we only had one computer scientist for every ten editorial staff."
"Spree also uses AI and ML to serve shoppers and recently launched its image search function, a first for online shopping in Africa," says Vincent Hoogduijn, CEO of Media24 e-commerce. "The function lets shoppers upload an image of a clothing item they like. The app then uses image recognition technology to search for similar items on Spree."
"Spree was leading the local e-fashion market. Sixty percent of sales now came via mobile," he adds. "Spree has grown its audience faster than its competitors and aims to continue this growth path." While online retail currently forms 1% of the South African retail market, this number was projected to grow to 3% by 2020, a R27-billion opportunity, Hoogduijn says.
Shareholders received the news that Welkom Yizani will get a special cash dividend following the unbundling of Novus Holdings. In compliance with directions from the Competition Tribunal, Media24 is reducing its stake in Novus Holdings from 66% to 19%. Welkom Yizani shareholders will get a 15% proportional share of the proceeds of the unbundling, which will be not less than R14.79 per ordinary Welkom Yizani share.
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