Sea Limited, the Singapore-based group behind Shopee, the fintech arm Monee and the games studio Garena, reported first-quarter revenue of US$7.1 billion, up 46.6 per cent on a year earlier. The detail that made the quarter, reported on 12 May, is that all three businesses grew at once. For most of Sea's life as a public company, one engine has carried the others.
Shopee sets a record
The e-commerce arm booked 4.0 billion gross orders and US$37.3 billion in gross merchandise value, a quarterly high. More telling for profitability, the take rate — the slice of each sale Shopee keeps — rose to 13.7 per cent from 12.3 per cent a year earlier. That 140-basis-point gain reflects more advertising and paid merchant services flowing through the platform, the higher-margin layer Sea has been building toward.
Monee and Garena pull their weight
Monee, the digital-financial-services unit, grew its loan book about 70 per cent year on year to US$9.9 billion while keeping non-performing loans steady at 1.1 per cent. Lending fast without letting bad debt climb is the hard trick in consumer fintech, and the steady ratio is the number a credit analyst checks first. Garena, long the group's swing factor, delivered what management called its strongest quarter in five years on renewed engagement in Free Fire.
The guidance
Sea expects Shopee's full-year GMV to grow about 25 per cent, and full-year adjusted earnings for the e-commerce segment to hold at no lower than 2025 in absolute terms, per Seeking Alpha. The guidance implies growth without trading away the profitability the company spent two hard years earning.
Why it matters for the region
Sea is the closest thing South-east Asia has to a homegrown platform champion, operating across Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and its home market. A quarter where commerce, credit and gaming all compound at once is a marker for the region's digital economy, not only for one company's shareholders. It also raises the competitive bar for Grab, GoTo and the Chinese platforms pushing into the same markets.
All three engines fired again in the second quarter
The thesis held. Sea reported second-quarter revenue of US$7.8bn, up 48.1 per cent, with Shopee gross merchandise value at a fresh high of US$38.3bn, Monee's digital finance revenue up 58.9 per cent to US$1.4bn, and Garena revenue up 34 per cent to US$747m. Free Fire averaged more than 100 million daily active users.
Growth accelerated slightly rather than reverting: 46.6 per cent in the first quarter, 48.1 per cent in the second. For a company at this revenue base, holding such a high growth rate for two consecutive quarters is the harder achievement that turns a good quarter into a trend.
The loan book kept compounding, and it now defines the company
Monee's loans outstanding reached US$11.1bn in the second quarter, up 62.5 per cent, from US$9.9bn and 70 per cent three months earlier.
The growth rate came down and the absolute exposure went up, which is what a maturing credit book looks like. The ratio a credit analyst checks was described as stable in both quarters. Keeping non-performing loans stable for two quarters while the book grows by more than half is difficult, and that ratio remains the number that would move fastest if conditions turned.
Revenue grew four times faster than profit
The second quarter clarified one figure the first did not: the widening gap between revenue and profit.
Revenue rose 48.1 per cent. Net income rose 10.6 per cent, to US$458.1m. Gross profit tracked revenue closely at 47.3 per cent, which locates the divergence below the gross line rather than in pricing or take rate. That is the signature of deliberate spending: sales and marketing, credit provisions, content and platform investment all rising with the top line.
None of that is a warning on its own. A business capturing share trades near-term margin for position, and Sea has said as much. It does mean the headline growth rate overstates how much is reaching the bottom, and that adjusted EBITDA of US$917.2m is the more useful operating figure to hold the company to. Management's US$1bn Shopee target for the year is the specific claim on the record.
The guidance survived the quarter
Shopee full-year gross merchandise value growth of about 25 per cent, and full-year adjusted earnings for the e-commerce segment holding at no lower than 2025 in absolute terms, was the promise made in May. Nothing in the second quarter contradicted it.
Garena is the part that keeps earning a mention. Bookings of US$764m against revenue of US$747m means the business is converting close to what it sells within the period rather than drawing down deferred balances. The concentration risk in a single title has been obvious for five years and has not yet cost the company anything.
The regional bar rose, and one part of the group is not clearing it
A homegrown platform champion compounding across Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore raises the competitive bar for Grab, GoTo and the Chinese platforms. That case is stronger after a second quarter than it was after one.
The qualification sits inside the group. MariBank, Sea's Singapore digital bank, lost S$55.6m in 2025 and has roughly three years of its regulatory profitability window remaining. It is now building a regional banking group starting in the Philippines, a market where a large share of transactions still begin and end in cash.
The three engines that fired were commerce, credit and gaming. Sea's fourth venture, a licensed regional bank, is on a different and slower clock, with results that do not yet match the rest of the group.
