Naspers and international sister group Prosus carried the JSE on Tuesday, the counters adding a combined R208bn to their market caps, as Tencent launched a new AI agent compatible with the popular OpenClaw platform.
Internet giant Tencent is still the Naspers stable’s largest investment.
The company’s shares rose 7.27% in Hong Kong on Tuesday after the Chinese company launched an AI agent for workplace tasks, WorkBuddy, that is fully compatible with OpenClaw.
The platform is a free and open-source autonomous AI agent originally developed by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger. It can execute tasks through large language models, using messaging platforms such as Signal, Telegram, Discord, or WhatsApp as its main user interface.
This is part of a growing trend regarding AI-powered agents, known as agentic AI, taking over more tasks from people such as an agent that works like a personal assistant, making bookings, creating meetings and summarising notes and other important information.
OpenClaw has been generating much enthusiasm in the US and Chinese tech sectors.
Tencent is being rewarded for moving quickly to integrate a viral AI platform into a commercial product.
The JSE rode the positive momentum with Naspers shares up 7.31% at R945.08, while Prosus was 8.72% firmer at R884.52 on Tuesday.
Management has over the years been trying to unlock value from its vast portfolio of businesses in areas such as food delivery, classifieds, fintech and education, which are not fully reflected in the Prosus share price.
The value of units such as PayU, Brazil’s iFood, Germany’s Delivery Hero and India’s Swiggy are dwarfed by the group’s stake in Tencent, the China-based technology and entertainment conglomerate valued at about $160bn.
To counter this, the group has been focused on proving the value of its non-Tencent business, with the first goal of generating profits being achieved in 2024.
The strategy appears to be bearing fruit, as Naspers reported a strong set of interim results driven by e-commerce growth. It is on track to deliver its guidance of more than $1.1bn in adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) for the full year to March.
E-commerce adjusted ebitda grew 71% to $557m.
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