Sea swings into the black in Q1 with $411m profit

Forrest Li, chairman and CEO of Sea Limited / Photo credit: Sea Limited

Sea reported US$410.8 million in earnings for the first quarter of 2025, reversing from a loss of US$23 million in Q1 2024.

Revenue for the quarter rose 29.6% to US$4.8 billion from US$3.7 billion a year prior. This slightly missed the forecast of a Bloomberg poll of 14 analysts by US$40 million to US$80 million.

“Our strong start to the year gives us more confidence in achieving our full-year guidance,” said Forrest Li, chairman and CEO of Sea.

The firm’s ecommerce arm Shopee reported a 28.3% increase in Q1 2025 revenue to US$3.1 billion, up from US$2.4 billion in Q1 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for the segment stood at US$264.4 million for the quarter, reversing from a loss of US$21.7 million in Q1 2024.

“Our strong execution of our operational priorities – enhancing price competitiveness, improving service quality, and strengthening our content ecosystem – has continued to make Shopee competitive and differentiated,” said Li.

Monee, Sea’s newly rebranded digital financial services arm, reported a 57.6% increase in Q1 2025 revenue to US$787.1 million from US$499.4 million in Q1 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was US$241.4 million, a 62.4% year-on-year increase.

The uptick in Monee’s Q1 2025 revenue was driven mainly by consumer and SME business. As of March 31, Monee’s loan book stood at US$5.8 billion, a 76.5% bump year on year. Meanwhile, the non-performing loans ratio for the loan book stood at 1.1%.

“As we scale, we remain focused on risk management as a top priority. We are confident that we can grow Monee in a way that is resilient to credit cycles and profitable in the long term,” said Li

Gaming arm Garena reported a 51.4% year-on-year increase in bookings for Q1 2025 to US$775.4 million. Revenue also grew 8.2% to US$495.6 million for the quarter from US$458.1 million in Q1 2024.

Quarterly active users for Garena’s Free Fire game increased 56.8% in Q1 2025 to 661.8 million, and quarterly paying users were up 32.2% to 64.6 million, compared with a year prior.

Notably, this was Garena’s best quarter since 2021.

“Thanks to the phenomenal success of the Free Fire and Naruto collaboration in January, Free Fire’s average daily active users (DAU) in the first quarter was close to its peak quarterly average DAU during the pandemic,” said Li.

See also: Sea Group’s financial health in 7 charts