Discovery reports accelerated growth across its businesses

The Discovery Group reported strong financial results for the six months to end-December 2025, in what it described as a complex global environment.

Discovery said it advanced well ahead of its five-year growth ambition, delivering robust growth across its business composites – both Discovery South Africa and the global Vitality composite.

Normalised profit from operations increased 24% to R8.8 billion.

Headline earnings jumped 29% to R5.8 billion; and normalised headline earnings were up 27% to R5.7 billion.

The group declared an interim dividend of 111 cents per share, an increase of 28% relative to the previous period.

Discovery South Africa delivered 19% growth in normalised profit from operations, with every business contributing meaningfully:

Talking to Stephen Grootes, Group CEO Adrian Gore says the key issue in their growth has been the Vitality Shared-Value Insurance model which has worked well in all their businesses.

While this growth has been across the board, he singles out Discovery Bank as standout performer that has reached a point of significant scaling.

Key points:

• Discovery Bank: Achieved normalised operating profit of R75 million, with client numbers increasing 28% to 1.4 million and strong growth in both deposits and advances.
• Discovery Health: Operating profit grew 5% to R2.1 billion, supported by technology investment, strong membership retention and efficiency gains.
• Discovery Life: Operating profit rose 15% to R3.1 billion, driven by favourable mortality and morbidity experience and the new margin increased.
• Discovery Invest: Assets under management increased 24% to R142 billion, supported by strong inflows and market performance.
• Discovery Insure: Normalised operating profit grew 34% to R546 million, with improved underwriting margins and strong performance from the Vitality Drive programme.

Gore also discusses the Vitality wellness business, where data and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) have enabled the personalisation of the action an individual should take, and how to incentivise this.

"The ability to do that will dramatically affect the person's health and the economics of the entire insurance business. That's where it's going and I think we are leading in that space."

Scroll up to the audio player to hear more insights from Discovery's Adrian Gore