Letter to readers: Why the media keeps getting Sea wrong

Dear readers,

I probably sound like a broken record by now.

But it’s worth repeating: The media needs to cover Sea properly.

The Southeast Asian internet company has just released its latest earnings. And like clockwork, some reputable business media blasted headlines about its growing net loss.

Now, in many cases, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Photo credit: Shopee

But because Tech in Asia covers Sea a lot, we can tell you that its net loss isn’t a real reflection of its bottom line.

If you want a better understanding of Sea’s latest earnings, you should check out our analysis of the numbers.

We’ve also been consistently bringing you in-depth coverage on various aspects of Sea’s business, including our story on whether Shopee is a threat to MercadoLibre’s dominance in Brazil.

I’m obviously boasting here. But at the same time, I believe there are things we do much better than other publications and things that we don’t.

For example, you won’t see us covering Facebook or Google, unless it’s about their activities in Asia. We’re aware that when a journalist’s reach exceeds their grasp, their reputation suffers.

So we zoom in on certain topics. Asia’s super-app space is something that we write about often. And last week, we revealed that Gojek Singapore burned US$141 million in its first full year of operations. However, as our article demonstrates, it’s a figure that must be set in the right context.

We also look at food tech quite a bit. We wrote about how a founder sold his company to fintech heavyweight Ovo, and then went on to start a food and beverage brand with global aspirations.

Venture capitalists have taken to investing in F&B brands, and the pandemic has a lot to do with it. For example, a major cloud kitchen operator is plotting an aggressive expansion in Southeast Asia with a unique approach, while a Rocket Internet-backed coffee startup has expanded rapidly last year.