Takealot has done something it never managed before: it made a profit. Results released on Monday by parent company Naspers show that the Takealot Group swung to a maiden full-year adjusted operating profit in the year ended 31 March 2026 — a milestone for South Africa’s best-known online retailer as it fends off Amazon’s arrival in the local market.
The group reported adjusted earnings before interest and tax (aEBIT) of US$11 million, roughly R190 million, swinging from a US$13 million loss (about R220 million) the year before. Revenue grew 18% in local-currency terms, excluding acquisitions, to around US$1 billion (R17.3 billion), while gross merchandise value — the total worth of goods sold across its platforms — rose 14% to US$2 billion (R34.6 billion). Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation jumped 60% in rand terms to US$78 million (R1.35 billion).
Takealot.com does the heavy lifting
The core Takealot.com marketplace led the charge, generating US$906 million (about R15 billion) in revenue, up 19% in rands, and an aEBIT profit of US$7 million (R121 million). Naspers credited wider gross margins from a better product mix, its growing retail-media advertising business, and the paid TakealotMORE loyalty programme, which now accounts for 27% of the platform’s sales. The food-delivery arm, Mr D, stayed profitable, lifting revenue 11% in rands to US$138 million (R2.4 billion). Naspers said Takealot was holding on to its market leadership despite Amazon’s much-watched South African launch.
Read the fine print
There is an important caveat. The figures are measured in adjusted terms — aEBIT and aEBITDA — which strip out various costs and are not standard IFRS measures of profit. Naspers itself notes they cannot be compared directly with other companies’ reported earnings, even though the group uses them to set management pay and dividends. Takealot’s breakthrough is real and meaningful, but it is a profit on the group’s preferred yardstick rather than the bottom line of a conventional income statement.
Looking ahead, the group plans to turn its delivery network into a business in its own right, scaling Takealot Fulfilment Solutions to ship parcels for outside retailers across the country. After years of losses, the question now is whether Takealot can keep the profit ticking over while Amazon spends heavily to win local shoppers.
