Sea stock

Sea Ltd. soared after reporting its first-ever profit, a milestone in the Southeast Asian gaming and e-commerce giant's effort to convince investors of its ...

One of Tuesday's biggest premarket movers hails from Singapore. American depositary receipts for Sea, a consumer-internet conglomerate, are up about 22%.

Sea said net income was $426.8 million in the fourth quarter while analysts had expected a loss of US$434 million on average. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Much of the profit reported on Tuesday came from brutal cost cuts - a more than US$700 million reduction in marketing expenses alone - and on-paper gains from the way it accounted for debt and certain types of expenses. Sea still faces deep-pocketed competitors in all of its main businesses, from Alibaba Group Holding’s Lazada to TikTok Shop in e-commerce and a slew of up-and-comers in digital finance. Analysts expected a loss of US$434 million on average.

Digital gaming and e-commerce firm Sea Ltd. posted its first-ever quarterly profit, sending its New York-listed shares soaring overnight.

[Gang Ye](https://www.forbes.com/profile/gang-ye/?sh=46801e397c76) and [David Chen](https://www.forbes.com/profile/david-chen/?sh=77ff93f755fd) in 2009, the year the trio launched online gaming platform Garena. “As we continue this transition and maintain our focus on sustainable growth, our approach is to do less but do it better as we serve our users across our digital ecosystem,” Li said. The stock rally boosted Li’s net worth to over $5 billion, compared with $4.2 billion when the list of Singapore’s 50 Richest was last published in September, Forbes data showed. Shopee has largely pulled back from its global expansion drive, shutting down operations in India and Europe to focus on key markets in Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Brazil. The turnaround in the fourth quarter helped narrow Sea’s full-year net loss to $1.7 billion from $2 billion in the previous year. While digital entertainment remains Sea’s most profitable business, contributions have dwindled after India banned its flagship mobile game Free Fire in February.

Tech giant Sea posted a quarterly profit for the first time as the company pledged to move towards profitability last quarter.

"In our Asia markets, we will work to further strengthen our leading position and profitability. "As a result, we began to see meaningful improvements in the bottom line." Positive EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, refers to the company operating at a profitable level. Most recently, it announced that it will be expanding its presence in Malaysia, according to We exited or downsized operations in non-core markets, streamlined our game pipeline with divestments and project closures, and deprioritized non-core initiatives," the CEO said. "However, there are still some macro headwinds and declining gross merchandize value (GMV) trends that could further delay its path to profitability," said Woo. "Given the macro uncertainty and our recent strong pivot, we are closely monitoring the market environment and we will continue to adjust our pace and fine-tune our operations accordingly," said Li. SeaMoney's adjusted EBITDA also turned positive for the first time to $75.6 million for the fourth quarter, driven by improvements in revenue and sales and marketing expenses. "Recent cost-cutting measures like freezing salaries and employee headcount [have] given Sea's stock some much needed reprieve. "We do expect Garena's growth to continue declining moving forward, given the lack of a strong games pipeline, and the continued download ban on Free Fire in India," said Phillip Securities' Woo, adding that quarterly active users and paying users have been dropping in the last five quarters. Given the macro uncertainty and our recent strong pivot, we are closely monitoring the market environment and we will continue to adjust our pace and fine-tune our operations accordinglyForrest Lichairman and group CEO, Sea Limited - "The positive surprise in fourth-quarter 2022 earnings should provide continued upward momentum for Sea – especially with the path to profitability slightly clearer," said Jonathan Woo, senior research analyst at Phillip Securities.

Consumer internet company Sea Limited (NYSE: SE) reported fourth-quarter FY22 revenue growth of 7.1% year-on-year to $3.45 billion, beating the consensus of ...