Sea Limited (Sea), a consumer internet company, operates three core businesses of e-commerce, digital financial services, and digital entertainment, known as Shopee, SeaMoney and Garena.
Each business is localized to meet the unique characteristics of the company’s markets. Many of the company’s markets are experiencing a generational transition to the new digital economy, with digital inclusion bringing consumers ever more closely to each other and online services, by leading internet business...
Sea Limited (Sea), a consumer internet company, operates three core businesses of e-commerce, digital financial services, and digital entertainment, known as Shopee, SeaMoney and Garena.
Each business is localized to meet the unique characteristics of the company’s markets. Many of the company’s markets are experiencing a generational transition to the new digital economy, with digital inclusion bringing consumers ever more closely to each other and online services, by leading internet business models, such as its own.
Shopee is the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. It also has a significant presence in Latin America. Since its inception, Shopee has adopted a mobile-first approach and is a highly scalable marketplace platform that connects buyers and sellers. Shopee provides users with a convenient, safe, and trusted shopping environment that is supported by integrated payment, logistics, fulfillment, and other value-added services. The company’s users enjoy the social nature of Shopee’s platform, where users can follow, rate, and easily browse for discovery to enhance their retail experience. The company also empowers sellers with various tools and support, and other value-added services, for them to better engage with their buyers. The company monetizes Shopee mainly by offering sellers paid advertising services, charging transaction-based fees, and charging for certain value-added services, including logistics. The company also purchases products from manufacturers and third parties, and sells them directly to buyers on its Shopee platform.
SeaMoney is a leading digital financial services provider in Southeast Asia, with a growing presence in Brazil. SeaMoney currently offers consumer and SME credit, mobile wallet, payment processing, banking, and insurtech services.
Garena is a global game developer and publisher. Garena provides users with access to popular and engaging mobile and PC online games that it develops, curates, licenses, and localizes for each market. The company also promotes esports in its markets to strengthen its game ecosystem and increase user engagement.
Each of the company’s businesses provides a distinct and compelling value proposition to its users, and each exhibits strong virtuous cycle dynamics, which support its leadership position and provide a strong foundation for continued growth.
Businesses
Shopee E-commerce Business
The company’s Shopee e-commerce platform is a mobile-centric, social-focused marketplace with integrated payment and logistics infrastructure, and comprehensive services that it offers to sellers. It is a highly scalable marketplace platform that provides users with a convenient, safe, and trusted shopping environment that is supported by integrated payment, logistics, fulfillment, and other value-added services. Shopee is the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. The company also has a significant presence in Latin America.
Shopee’s marketplace model allows it to scale rapidly. In addition, the company introduces many social and gamification elements into Shopee, which enable it to increase organic user acquisition, user retention, and user time spent on the company’s platform.
While the company primarily operates as a marketplace, it also purchases some products from manufacturers or third parties directly, and sells on its Shopee platform under its official store to meet buyers’ demand. Bulk purchasing and direct product sales for specific product categories also enable the company to offer a more diversified product assortment to its buyers.
Buyers and Sellers
The company’s buyers are individuals and households who mainly purchase from sellers that are within the same market.
Shopee sellers are primarily small and medium businesses, brands, large retailers, as well as individuals, who view Shopee as an efficient and reliable way of managing the selling process while maximizing customer needs. On Shopee, each seller has an online storefront on which they list their products, communicate with buyers, and complete transactions. The company’s Shopee Mall hosts brands and large retailers prominently featuring their distinct logos, and offers a premium shopping experience to a broad base of buyers.
E-commerce Platform Operations
Product Category Focus
The company uses targeted seller engagement and product placement to attract sellers and bring products to its platform. It leverages its deep understanding of local market conditions and user preferences to prioritize product categories that have higher realization rates and profitability for its sellers. The company currently offers a comprehensive general merchandise platform with strength in long-tail high-margin categories, such as fashion, health and beauty, and home and living. Meanwhile, it continues to expand categories to include an increasingly diverse range of products.
Seller Support and Service by Shopee
The company offers strong support to sellers on the Shopee platform through large on-the-ground teams with deep knowledge of its local markets. The company’s local teams also offer fast and localized operational and technological assistance in using business management tools. Moreover, an extensive network of logistics and payment solution providers are integrated into the platform to provide users with a one-stop solution. In addition to such integrated payment and logistics, the company also offers sellers fulfillment and other value-added services.
Under ‘Service by Shopee,’ the company offers a range of value-added services to sellers, including inventory management, online store operations, and fulfillment services. ‘Service by Shopee’ is currently available to sellers in its Southeast Asia and Taiwan markets.
The company takes the user experience beyond a traditional online marketplace environment, making online shopping truly seamless.
Buyer Protection
The company focuses on creating a secure and reliable shopping environment for its buyers and has developed robust consumer protection policies and procedures, including the following measures:
Seller Verification: Sellers on the Shopee platform are subject to a verification process and must agree to the company’s standard terms of service before opening a seller account.
Listing Screening: Shopee has adopted a set of policies and procedures to prevent and remove listings of inappropriate or illegal goods, and to screen out repeat offenders. All listings on the Shopee platform first undergo automated screenings against a list of illegal product names, categories, and descriptions. The company has developed this list based on local regulations, and it is frequently updated by the company’s local teams to reflect the latest regulatory requirements. Listings posted by sellers, which are deemed to be of high risk based on its screening, will not be visible on its platform until they are manually cleared by its operations and compliance teams. Listings that are not cleared due to regulatory violations or other violations of its terms of use will be permanently removed, and the seller will not be able to edit or re-submit the same product listing.
Shopee Guarantee: The company provides ‘Shopee Guarantee,’ a free service to facilitate transactions on the Shopee platform. Under Shopee Guarantee, the company holds payments made by buyers in certain designated Shopee Guarantee accounts held by it until the ordered products are received or deemed to have been received by the buyer. After this, the company releases the payment to the seller. If the purchased products are never delivered to or received by the buyer, the company will return the funds to them. Shopee Guarantee is available for all transactions executed through the Shopee platform.
Dispute Resolution: The company has on-the-ground teams to help resolve disputes between buyers and sellers. In the case of a dispute, a buyer may submit supporting evidence through the company’s dispute resolution system and seek compensation from the seller.
Shopee Communication Tool
The Shopee platform offers a live chat function enabling real-time communication between buyers and sellers. Buyers typically use the chat function to clarify product-related details, while sellers typically use the function to confirm payment and delivery information.
Integrated Logistics Services
Logistics is critical for the development of e-commerce in the company’s markets since many of them have terrain that is difficult to navigate and underdeveloped infrastructure. The company relies on a combination of its own logistics capability and third-party logistics service providers to service Shopee orders. The logistics service providers, with which the company cooperates, include some of the largest and most reliable service providers in its markets. The company also builds its own local logistics capabilities to more effectively serve its buyers and sellers.
Moreover, sellers and buyers can track the delivery status of their packages on the company’s Shopee platform and provide feedback on logistics services. The company evaluates and provides feedback to its logistics service providers to improve the level of services provided to its users, such as average delivery time.
Payment on Shopee
As transactions on Shopee are protected by Shopee Guarantee, buyers make payments to Shopee’s designated Shopee Guarantee account, which are then released by Shopee to the sellers upon buyers’ receipt or deemed receipt of the goods. Depending on the market, sellers and buyers can choose from a number of payment options to complete transactions on Shopee, including the company’s own mobile wallet and consumption loan services, credit cards, bank transfers through ATM or over the internet, and cash payments upon delivery or at designated convenience stores. Shopee has already integrated its payment processing system with SeaMoney’s payment infrastructure.
Marketing and Promotions
The company undertakes both online and offline marketing efforts to promote its brand awareness and attract new users. The company’s online efforts mainly include online advertisements through major web portals, search engines, social media, and its Shopee Affiliate Program. The company’s online advertisements focus on promoting campaigns, such as Shopee 3.3 Mega Shopping Sale, 9.9 Super Shopping Day, 11.11 Big Sale, and 12.12 Birthday Sale, as well as driving order conversions. The company’s offline marketing efforts are based on localized approaches, including television commercials on major TV channels and display advertisements in selected high-traffic locations to cater to each market’s consumer landscape.
Social and Gamification Features
As part of the company’s strategy to enhance user traffic and engagement on the Shopee platform, it has introduced a number of innovative social and gamification features, such as ‘Shopee Coins,’ ‘Shopee Prizes,’ and ‘Shopee Live.’ The company also enhanced its augmented reality tools, namely ‘BeautyCam’ and ‘SkinCam,’ that enable virtual try-ons for a personalized online shopping experience.
Users can win ‘Shopee Coins’ from making purchases, sharing reviews, playing mini-games, and participating in campaign activities, then use these Shopee Coins to offset the cost of purchases from eligible sellers. ‘Shopee Prizes’ are a variety of mini-games that promote in-app interactions between fellow users through achieving individual or group rewards. ‘Shopee Live’ enables buyers to watch and purchase directly from livestreams hosted by sellers and content creators. These livestreams promote real-time product demonstrations and interactions between sellers, content creators, and their viewers, driving a path to purchase.
Monetization
The company monetizes Shopee mainly by offering sellers paid advertising services, charging transaction-based fees, and charging for certain value-added services, including logistics.
Revenue from Shopee also includes revenue from products sold by the company. The company purchases products from manufacturers or third parties directly, and sells on its Shopee platform under its official store to meet buyers’ demand for such products.
SeaMoney Digital Financial Services Business
SeaMoney, the company’s digital financial services business, is a leading digital financial services provider in Southeast Asia, with a growing presence in Brazil. SeaMoney offers consumer and SME credit, mobile wallet, payment processing, banking, and insurtech services.
SeaMoney’s credit business primarily consists of consumer and SME loans provided predominantly to both Shopee buyers and sellers. On the buyer side, the company offers consumption loans (SPayLater), which give users the ability to complete their purchase first and make the payment later or in installments, and cash loans, which allow users to meet their short-term borrowing needs. The tenure of such loans is short, generally in the range of 3 to 12 months. On the seller side, the company offers unsecured SME loans to help sellers expand their operations and fast escrow services to help sellers receive their funds faster and improve cash flow management.
The company has integrated the mobile wallet services of SeaMoney with its Shopee platform across different markets, to promote efficient growth of SeaMoney, and to reduce payment friction for Shopee users. Moreover, it has use cases of its mobile wallet services outside of Sea’s platforms, including other online and offline merchants, along with a variety of third-party use cases. Third-party merchants currently include telecommunications companies, online and offline entertainment service providers, such as game operators or app stores, movie theaters, concert/event venues, utility service providers, technology companies, food delivery service providers, credit card issuers, banks, fund managers, fund distributors, insurance companies, and car leasing companies. As the company increases the number and type of merchants on the SeaMoney platform, it is able to offer mobile payment solutions for a wider range of products and services to meet the daily needs of its users and attract more users to the platform.
Moreover, SeaMoney offers other digital financial services to its users through technology, such as payment processing in Southeast Asia and Brazil, and banking services in Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The company also offers insurance products through its SeaInsure business. SeaInsure acts as an underwriter for selective types of life and non-life insurance products in certain of its markets. The company also acts as the insurance agent and conducts insurance brokerage business in certain of its markets to distribute embedded or standalone products on its e-commerce platform.
Monetization
The company mainly monetizes its digital financial services business by earning interest and fees from its credit and banking businesses, earning fees from its mobile wallet, payment processing services, and its insurance business.
Marketing
Marketing of the company’s SeaMoney products and services has been done through online and offline advertisements, and in-app advertisements through its apps and platforms.
Garena Digital Entertainment Business
Garena, the company’s digital entertainment business, primarily focuses on offering mobile and PC online games and developing mobile games for the global markets.
The company began its digital entertainment business at its inception in 2009. It offers its users easy access to highly engaging and localized content online that it develops or licenses, as well as organizes and sponsors exciting game activities online and offline. The company focuses on game development, curation, localization, operation, distribution, monetization, and payments, as well as user community building and esports activities.
Games
The company’s games consist of self-developed games and games licensed from third-party developers. It offers immersive games covering some of the most popular and engaging genres, such as battle royale games, multiplayer online battle arenas, or MOBAs, role-playing games, or RPGs, massively multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPGs, racing games, and sports games. In most of these games, users play online in a virtual environment existing on network game servers that connect a large number of players simultaneously to interact with each other within the games.
Mobile games have gained popularity in the company’s markets. In December 2017, the company launched the first game that it developed entirely in-house, Free Fire, a mobile game of the battle royale genre. Free Fire has enabled the company to grow globally beyond Southeast Asia and Taiwan, where it initially launched its game business. It is currently available on the Google Play and iOS App Stores in more than 160 markets. The company plans to continue to expand its game development capabilities and publishing business.
Game Players
The company has a large and active user base for its online game business.
The company’s large user base, as well as the team and social aspects of its games, keep its game players engaged and also create powerful network effects that further attract users to its games.
In-House Game Development
The company develops mobile games that cater to the demands of highly diverse markets across the globe. The company’s game development capabilities are particularly strengthened by its global experience in game publishing. The company has a sizeable in-house game development team consisting of global developers focused on enhancing Free Fire gameplay and building out its pipeline of self-developed games.
Third-Party Games Publishing
The company also curates top third-party game content globally for publishing in its markets. The company’s market leadership and success in operating and customizing games for its local game players have helped it forge deep relationships with key international game developers in different parts of the world. Game developers choose the company to operate their games in its markets because of its leading market position, strong reputation in the online game community, and successful track record of operating and popularizing games in its markets. The company is therefore able to source high-quality games from world-class developers, many of whom work with it as their exclusive partner in its markets. The company relies on its local knowledge and years of game operating experience to select games that will match user needs and genre preferences. As it attracts more high-quality game developers to partner with it, the company is able to attract more users with a larger volume of high-quality content.
The company provides its game developer partners access to a large user base in highly diverse markets across the globe, enabling its games to quickly become popular. The company’s services to third-party game developers include game launch and hosting, localization, marketing, distribution, monetization, integrated payment infrastructure, including access to its SeaMoney mobile wallet services, and online and offline community building activities.
In particular, the company localizes licensed games to adapt to each market. It works with game developers to translate game content into local languages, revise game design to suit local preferences, and meet regulatory requirements for each jurisdiction. The company’s content localization efforts entail continuing feedback loops with developers throughout the life of the games it operates.
Monetization and Payments
The company’s game monetization model is a ‘freemium’ model that allows its users to download and play fully functional games for free. The company generates revenue primarily by selling its game players in-game items, which include in-game virtual items, such as digital representations of functional or decorative items, as well as season passes. Digital representations of functional or decorative items include in-game clothing, pets, weaponry, or equipment, which players can purchase and utilize within the game environment to enhance their gameplay experience. Players that purchase season passes can receive additional in-game virtual items upon satisfying certain conditions. Players who choose to purchase in-game items benefit from being able to accelerate progress, enhance social interactions, and enjoy a more personalized game playing experience.
The company offers multiple methods for users to purchase in-game items, including through the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store payment gateways, its SeaMoney mobile wallet services, other online payment gateways, bank transfers, credit cards, debit cards, mobile phone billing, and prepaid cards, including its own prepaid cards, which are sold through agents.
Esports and Community Building
The company organizes esports events annually and operates one of the largest mobile-game professional leagues in Asia, Latin America, and North Africa. It organizes esports competitions that range in size from relatively small-scale local tournaments to widely publicized and promoted global esports events.
Some of the company’s users have become full-time professional esports athletes that compete for prize money in tournaments and sponsorships from large corporations that often also sponsor professional sports. Free Fire’s large esports and streaming community is another key pillar of its user engagement strategy.
Marketing
The company devises and executes marketing plans tailored for each market. It markets its games through a combination of online advertisement, outdoor and print advertisements, television commercials, influencer partnerships, as well as social media platforms and other online forums.
Customer Service
The company has dedicated customer service teams. The company’s customer service team is well-trained in assisting its users with issues they encounter on its platforms, gathering feedback on how to improve its services, and receiving user complaints and suggestions. Moreover, the company has adopted systematic internal procedures to quickly respond to and resolve customer complaints.
Research and Development
The company’s research and development expenses were US$1.2 billion for 2024.
Regulation
The company has obtained the investment in-principle license and the business license required for foreign investment companies engaging in e-commerce marketplace and game distribution businesses in Indonesia, issued by the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board.
The company regularly arranges to obtain approvals of the games it exhibits and any updated versions from the Film and Video Censorship Committee.
The company’s businesses in Taiwan are required to comply with the Personal Data Protection Act while collecting, processing, transferring, and using the personal information of its users. Failure to comply with the Personal Data Protection Act may give rise to fines and criminal liability. Personal data collected from the company’s conduct of businesses fall within the scope of the Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562 (2019) (‘Personal Data Protection Act’).
The company has the e-payment service business licenses in Thailand for electronic money services, payment facilitating services, services for receiving electronic payments for and on behalf of sellers, service providers, or creditors, and services for transferring money by electronic means.
History
The company was founded in 2009. It was incorporated in 2009 as a limited liability company in the Cayman Islands. The company was formerly known as Garena Interactive Holding Limited and changed its name to Sea Limited in 2017.
