Digital gaming and e-commerce firm Sea Ltd. posted its second consecutive year of profitability, sending its New York-listed shares soaring and boosting the fortunes of its billionaire chairman Forrest Li and his two cofounders by $981 million overnight.
Sea reported late Tuesday that it returned to the black in the fourth quarter with a net profit of $237.6 million on the back of strong contributions from its e-commerce platform Shopee. That brought net profit for the whole of 2024 to $447.8 million, up 175% from the previous year.
“We delivered a great 2024 with all three businesses going back to strong, double-digit growth, exceeding our original guidance,” Li, who is also Sea’s CEO, said in a statement. “It was also our second consecutive year of annual positive profit, with all three of our businesses recording positive adjusted EBITDA.”
Shopee will remain a key growth driver this year, with Sea expecting the online retail platform’s gross merchandise value rising about 20% from $100.5 billion in 2024. The Singapore-based company also expects Garena to post double-digit growth in 2025 as the digital games publisher grows its user base and broadens its offerings.
With Sea sustaining its profitability, the company’s shares jumped 7.1% to $132.31 overnight in New York trading. That boosted Li’s net worth by $575 million to $8.4 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time data.
Li cofounded Sea with Gang Ye and David Chen in 2009, the year the trio (who are all billionaires) launched Garena. Six years later, Sea started Shopee in Singapore and has since become a regional e-commerce behemoth that now competes against rivals such as ByteDance’s TikTok and Alibaba. Originally from mainland China, the partners are now naturalized Singapore citizens. Ye added $301 million, bringing his net worth to $4.9 billion, while Chen’s fortune gained $105 million to $1.5 billion overnight, according to Forbes’ real-time data.
