Sea reports 418.3% surge in Q2 2025 earnings to US$414.2 million, on Shopee and Monee’s performance
Sea Ltd reported on Tuesday (Aug 12) a 418.3 per cent increase in its second-quarter earnings to US$414.2 million, a jump from the US$79.9 million in the year-ago period.
Revenue for the group grew 38.2 per cent to US$5.3 billion for Q2 2025, from US$3.8 billion in the year before, powered by the performance of its e-commerce and digital financial services arms, respectively, Shopee and Monee.
Revenue for Shopee grew 33.6 per cent to US$3.3 billion in Q2 2025, up from US$2.5 billion in Q2 2024. This was driven by the 28.2 per cent growth in gross merchandise value (GMV) in Q2 2025 to US$29.8 billion. Core marketplace revenue, drawn from transaction-based fees and advertising revenue, grew 46.2 per cent to US$2.6 billion in the quarter.
The number of sellers using Shopee’s advertising product rose by 20 per cent in Q2 2025, with the average quarterly ad spend rising 40 per cent. Members of Shopee’s VIP membership – a paid subscription service – grew their GMV by nearly 50 per cent quarter on quarter in Indonesia.
Shopee has extended the programme to Thailand and Vietnam, with total VIP subscribers hitting 2 million at the end of June.
Sea’s president Chris Feng said: “We see very good potential to be a meaningful programme in our market, comparable to other programmes you’re seeing with other e-commerce or retailers in the region or outside the region.”
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Investments will be made to grow acceptance and user sign-ups, especially to get users to renew their subscriptions. Doing this would not hurt the cost structure in the medium or long-term because these users generate better profitability than those in the low-end user base, he said.
Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) for its e-commerce arm was US$227.7 million in Q2 2025, a reversal from the loss of US$9.2 million in Q2 2024.
Shopee, which celebrated its fifth anniversary in Brazil, has become a market leader by order volume and is operating profitably, said Forrest Li, Sea’s chairman and chief executive.
“After a record-high Q1, Shopee has delivered a record-breaking Q2. GMV grew 25 per cent year on year in the first half, and we expect this growth momentum to carry into Q3,” he added.
Revenue from Monee, its digital financial services arm, also spiked, rising 70 per cent to US$882.8 million in Q2 2025 from US$519.3 million in Q2 2024. The growth was driven primarily by the credit business from consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Monee added four million first-time borrowers in Q2 2025; active users of consumer and SME loan products surpassed 30 million during the quarter, a 45 per cent growth year on year.
The principal outstanding on consumer and SME loans stood at US$6.9 billion as at Jun 30, up 94 per cent year on year; non-performing loans stood at 1 per cent of the outstanding loans.
Adjusted Ebitda for digital financial services stood at US$255.3 million, up 55 per cent.
Bookings for Garena, Sea’s digital entertainment arm, grew 23.2 per cent to US$661.3 million in Q2 2025. Its revenue grew 28.4 per cent to US$559.1 million from US$435.6 million in Q2 the year before. This was mainly due to the growth in the active user base and number of paying users.
Average bookings per user for Q2 2025 stood at US$0.99, up from US$0.83 in Q2 2024.
Quarterly active users were up 2.6 per cent at 664.8 million in Q2 2025, and quarterly paying users rose 17.8 per cent to 61.8 million in the same period. The paying-user ratio was 9.3 per cent in Q2 2025, up from 8.1 per cent in Q2 2024.
“Given all this, we are raising our full-year guidance for Garena, and expect bookings to grow more than 30 per cent in 2025, year on year,” said Li.
Feng said there was no observable impact on the growth of Shopee’s Brazil business although competitors adjusted their free-shipping threshold.
Shopee’s focus in Brazil would be on being competitive with pricing while operating on a low-cost structure. Feng expressed confidence that even as competitors such as Temu and TikTok Shop have entered Brazil, Shopee would be able to hold on to its market share because these rivals would not be able to make much headway. Temu, for example, relies primarily on cross-border transactions, and Brazil’s tax structure discourages such transactions.
Shares of Sea closed down 0.9 per cent or US$1.38 at US$146.23 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.
