By Kimberley Kao

Sea Ltd., one of Southeast Asia's largest companies by market capitalization, reported sharply higher earnings in the third quarter, driven by strong growth across its businesses.

The Singapore-based consumer-internet giant behind e-commerce platform Shopee said Tuesday that net profit more than doubled to $375.0 million. That was still short of the $402.2 million consensus estimate of analysts in a Visible Alpha poll.

Revenue was better than expected, rising by 38% from a year earlier to $5.99 billion.

Shopee's e-commerce gross merchandise value, a measure of sales, and gross order volume both jumped 28%, delivering record quarterly performances, it said. Sea also raised its earnings guidance for Shopee, projecting GMV growth of more than 25% for 2025 instead of 20% forecast previously.

Shopee is the largest e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia and has expanded to parts of Latin America. It accounts for more than two-thirds of Sea's revenue, with gaming and financial services making up the rest.

Like many online shopping apps, it makes money from advertising and transaction fees, with sellers listing products ranging from iPhones and laptops to furniture and groceries. It also runs a food-delivery service in some markets.

Part of Sea's strategy has included using artificial intelligence and social commerce to enhance marketing strategies for sellers and provide tools that improve product recommendations for customers.

Chief Executive Forrest Li said recently that he sees a path to a $1 trillion market cap if the company can "harness and ride the huge wave of value creation AI will make," according to an internal memo seen by Dow Jones Newswires.

"It will require us to make the right calls, execute extremely well, remain very disciplined, and compete relentlessly," Li told employees in a note marking the eighth anniversary of Sea's market debut. "But a tech transition like this makes it possible."

The company's gaming division, Garena, recorded a 51% jump in bookings--a measure of revenue--to $840.7 million in the third quarter, and is on track to meet the guidance of more than 30% growth for the year, it said.

Southeast Asia's e-commerce industry is facing increasingly fierce competition from Chinese retailers, which are expanding abroad, as well as adapting to changing consumer behavior in online shopping.

In Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, Chinese online-shopping platforms, such as Alibaba's Lazada, Shein and PDD's Temu, accounted for roughly 50% of the local e-commerce market last year, according to Bain & Company.

Sea's digital financial services arm, Monee, is showing promise amid the company's efforts to diversify its income streams. The segment posted a 61% jump in revenue to $989.9 million, driven by the consumer and SME credit business.

Ahead of the results, Bernstein research analyst Venugopal Garre said the division is emerging as a long-term driver for Sea, though margins may soften in the short term as new products are launched during the "natural phase of expansion."

Sea's overall outperformance in the first half of the year may not be repeated in the second half as it reinvests aggressively in areas like faster delivery and logistics, and fintech, Garre said.

New York-listed Sea has gained about 46% so far this year. The company's American depositary receipts were recently 3.8% lower in premarket trading.

Write to Kimberley Kao at kimberley.kao@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 11, 2025 07:21 ET (12:21 GMT)

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