Peripheral capital goes global: Naspers, globalisation and global media contraflow

Abstract

Naspers, a South African media conglomerate worth US$64 billion in 2016, operates across a range of media and information platforms in 120 countries, including many ‘emerging markets’. Naspers is an exemplar of media markets’ contraflow, conceptualised as the movement of information, media content, consumer goods and capital from the ‘developing world’ into more developed markets. This study examines (a) how Naspers has diversified its core media holdings (print and satellite) into digital information service providers and e-commerce; (b) how this was achieved both globally and domestically; and (c) how this diversification allowed Naspers to maintain its pre-eminent position in the South African media market. South African financial magazine articles, between 2010 and 2014, reporting on Naspers’ globalisation are thematically examined with regard to globalisation, diversification, ownership and control and collaboration. These themes frame a political economy analysis of how Naspers penetrated, expanded and solidified its e-commerce business operations nationally and globally.