INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Sea, one of Southeast Asia largest internet companies, continues to see losses although its growing e-commerce business helped it hit record
revenue.
The Tencent-backed company went public back in October when it raised around $1 billion through an NYSE listing
Its latest earningsreleased today show revenue broke $200 million for the first time ($219.6 million) but losses continue to pile up
Revenue was up 71 percent year-on-year to hit the record figure but Sea losses continue to stack up
The company lost $250.8 million in Q2, up significantly from a $92.1 million loss one year previous and $216.2 million negative in the
previous quarter.
Sea main business, its Garena gaming unit, grew 19 percent to reach $116.9 million in revenue, butthe firm is placing a
lot of emphasis on its Shopee e-commerce service — which is the benefactor of a recent $500 million capital raise — and its growth
continues to be promising.
Shopee GMV, the total value of all goods sold on the service, grew 171 percent to $2.2 billion
That doesn''t include take-home revenue, but for the first time that figure has been broken: Shopee grossed$58.8 million in sales
That figure is up over 2,000 percent annually, but Sea has only just begun to monetize the service which is reflected in the huge rise.
For
now, a lot of that revenue looks to be based on aggressive user acquisition as Shopee battles with rivals that include Lazada, the
e-commerce service owned by Alibaba that has a large budget to work with.
Sea cost of marketing across all services — Shopee, Garena and
its AirPay service — jumped 131 percent year-on-year to reach $175.2 million in Q2
But, it pointed out that sales and marketing as a percentage of GMV shrunk to 6.2 percent from 6.8 percent and 6.6 percent in the previous
two quarters.
Shopee continued to expand rapidly across all markets, strengthening its leadership in the region
Our monetization strategy for Shopee is delivering ahead of expectations, even at this early stage,& said Sea CEO Forrest Li in a
