Singapore-headquartered e-commerce and gaming group Sea Ltd reported a 158.6 percent jump in revenue to $2.3 billion in the second quarter of 2021, mainly driven by growth in the e-commerce business and its digital entertainment business.

The New York Stock Exchange-listed tech giant saw its net loss widen to $433.67 million in the second quarter from $393.54 million a year ago, mainly due to higher sales and marketing, research & development expenses, Sea reported on Tuesday.

For its digital entertainment business, revenue increased by 166.8 percent to $1 billion in the second quarter of 2021 from $383.9 million in the second quarter of 2020, primarily due to the increase in active user base as well as the deepened paying user penetration.

As for its e-commerce and other services, revenue grew 174.1 percent to $999.7 million in the second quarter of 2021 from $364.7 million in the second quarter a year ago. This increase was primarily driven by the growth in the scale of its e-commerce marketplace and increase in each of its revenue streams.

The revenue of its sales of goods segment increased by 92.4 percent to $256.6 million in the second quarter this year from $133.4 million in the second quarter a year ago, primarily due to the increase in its product offerings.

Sea’s strong revenue growth came when many of its markets continue to see a high volume of COVID cases.

“We are very encouraged to see such strong year-on-year growth across our businesses. This is in comparison to our stand-out results for the second quarter of 2020 when most of our markets were under the strictest form of lockdowns,” Sea’s Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer Forrest Li said in a Q2 2021 earnings prepared remarks.

The group is raising its full-year 2021 guidance for both digital entertainment and e-commerce for the full year of 2021.

“We expect bookings for digital entertainment to be between $4.5 billion and $4.7 billion, representing 44.4 percent growth from 2020 at the midpoint of the revised guidance. We also expect revenue for e-commerce to be between $4.7 billion and $4.9 billion, representing 121.5 percent growth from 2020 at the midpoint of the revised guidance,” the group added.
Year-to-date, Sea’s share price has risen more than 57 percent. It has a market capitalization of $161.67 billion.
Last year, its share price jumped more than 400 percent.

 

Second Quarter 2021 Highlights:

• Total revenue was $2.3 billion, up 158.6 percent year-on-year.
• Total gross profit was $930.9 million, up 363.5 percent year-on-year.
• Total adjusted EBITDA was $(24.1) million [losses] compared to $7.7 million for the second quarter of 2020.
• Digital entertainment – revenue was $1.0 billion, up 166.8 percent year-on-year.
• Digital entertainment – quarterly active users reached 725.2 million, an increase of 45.1 percent on-year.
• Self-developed game, Free Fire, hit over 1 billion downloads on Google Play
• E-commerce – revenue was $1.2 billion, up 160.7 percent on-year
• E-commerce – Gross merchandise value was $15 billion, an increase of 87.5 percent on-year
• In Malaysia, Shopee recorded positive quarterly adjusted EBITDA, the second market after Taiwan to pass this milestone.
• Mobile wallet total payment volume exceeded $4.1 billion, up 150 percent on-year.
• Quarterly paying users for mobile wallet services increased to 32.7 million.