In 2001, Naspers made the investment that would change its history. The South African media group paid around $32 million for a 46.5% stake in Tencent, then a relatively small Chinese internet company best known for its QQ messaging service.
It is easy, with hindsight, to view the deal as an obvious masterstroke. It was anything but. China's internet economy was still in its infancy, the dot-com bubble had just burst and Tencent was a young company trying to find a sustainable business model.
Naspers stayed with it. Tencent went on to build one of the largest technology businesses in the world, expanding from messaging into gaming, social media, advertising, payments, fintech and cloud services. WeChat, launched a decade after the Naspers investment, would eventually become an indispensable part of everyday digital life in China.
The investment turned Naspers from a largely South African media business into a global technology investor with tens of billions of dollars at its disposal. Even today, after years of selling down the holding, Tencent remains central to the story. At the end of March 2026, Prosus, Naspers' international investment arm, still owned 22.66% of the Chinese group.
Originally published by African Business.