South-East Asian technology company founded by Forrest Li, based in Singapore. It has three main business lines: Shopee (e-commerce), Garena (gaming, maker of "Free Fire", which has 100m daily players) and Monee (fintech, with a $7bn loan portfolio). Its consumer-loan book dwarfs those of regional rivals Grab and GoTo.
By mid-2025 Sea was vying with DBS bank for the title of South-East Asia's most valuable listed firm, and net income exceeded $1bn for the first time.
Shopee holds about half of South-East Asia's e-commerce market and is also growing in Brazil. During the covid-19 pandemic Shopee invested nearly $2bn in 2021 and 2022, upgrading its in-house delivery provider, SPX Express, which now offers cheaper and faster delivery than rivals. A cost-cutting drive from 2022 narrowed losses without much interruption to growth; by 2025 Shopee was turning consecutive quarterly operating profits. E-commerce makes up three-quarters of Sea's revenue but a smaller share of operating profit than gaming or fintech.
The chief threat is social commerce, which accounts for a fifth of online shopping in South-East Asia. TikTok Shop (ByteDance) is the main competitor: two-thirds of its sales flow through video or live streams, and the value of goods bought on TikTok Shop more than doubled year on year in the first half of 2025 in South-East Asia's five biggest economies outside Singapore. Sea has responded with Shopee Live, a live-streaming platform launched in 2019, and a partnership with YouTube announced in 2024.
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