For the first time ever Singapore is home to two companies worth over US$100 billion: DBS and Sea Ltd., after the latter jumped by a whopping 19% in a day, following its latest earnings report.
The company market capitalisation leapt by US$16.5 billion (S$21 billion) to reach US$103 billion, trailing Singapore’s largest bank by further US$10 billion.
The reason for this surge is its sustained momentum, after the post-pandemic scare and race to profitability.
The company beat expectations on revenue growth, seeing it rise by over 38% this year, while quintupling its net income in the process and adding to its already large pile of cash that is now over US$10 billion—providing a valuable cushion should leaner years return.
Most importantly, unlike in the past when it used its profitable Garena business to bankroll the rapid but costly growth of Shopee, today all of its businesses are profitable—and just little over a year after hitting breakeven.
Not too long ago, it suffered a brief moment of market doubt about whether digital entertainment would continue propping Sea up after the lockdowns were eased and people returned to normal life, instead of spending time on gaming.
At one point, those concerns pushed the company’s stock down to just US$36 per share in September of 2023, before it began its upwards march to the US$174 it hit yesterday—in part on rebounding Garena, which saw close to 665 million active quarterly users and recorded a revenue hike of 28% compared to 2024.
Meanwhile, Sea’s third pillar, the digital finance arm Monee, is giving investors hope that the company has found yet another high growth business with very large future potential. As of now, it has handed out US$6.9 billion in loans—twice what it had on the books last year—and reported a revenue jump of 70% year-on-year.
This is why…
While you were sleeping…
…Sea’s founder Forrest Li, who recently became the president of the Football Association of Singapore hoping to lift the sport and the national team in the rankings, made a cool S$2.3 billion (US$1.8 billion) from the stock’s surge, according to Forbes’ live net worth tracking.
This puts him firmly back in the nation’s Top 10 wealthiest (or in the Top 5 by now), after he lost the top spot he once held, in the previous turbulent years.
All of his hard work is now paying dividends, as he turned the company from one that looked like it was at best a few quarters away from bankruptcy, into a stable, diversified tech business worth today more than Intel or Ferrari.
- Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.
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