Shopee-owner Sea's profit miss overshadows strong e-commerce gains
Adds costs in paragraph 4, Shopee forecast in paragraph 6, segment revenue in paragraphs 7,8 and profit in paragraph 9
Aug 13 (Reuters) -Southeast Asian technology firm Sea Ltd SE.N reported a higher-than-expectedrevenue for the second quarter andraised its forecast for e-commerce platform Shopee, but a jump in costs pushed profit below estimates.
A global economic slowdown has forced the company to streamline its businesses and cut thousands of jobs, after Sea's meteoric run in 2020 and 2021, when pandemic-led demand had lifted revenues and helped it expand beyond Southeast Asian markets.
Exiting India, and some markets in Europe and Latin America, as well as raising fees charged to sellers on its platform, helped the company achieve its first annual profit last year.
In the second quarter, however, its total operating expenses jumped 29% to $1.50 billion.
Stiff competition from Tokopedia, a unit of Indonesia's GoTo Gojek Tokopedia GOTO.JK and Temu, a unit of China-based PDD Holdings PDD.O, has led to increased marketing spending at Shopee, according to a J.P.Morgan note from June.
Still, CEO Forrest Li said the businesswill deliver an adjusted core operating profit in the third quarter, withthe gross merchandise value (GMV) for the platform expected to growmid-20% this year. Its earlier forecast from March was for2024 GMV growth in the high teens range.
E-commerce revenue, which makes up about two-thirds of the company's total, grew 34% to $2.8 billion, above analysts' expectations of $2.68 billion, according to LSEG data.
Bookingsat its digital entertainment segment, which includes gaming unit Garena,grew astronger-than-expected 21%, while sales from itsfinancial services business SeaMoneywere up 21.4%, just shy of estimates.
Sea's total revenuerose 23% to $3.81 billion in the quarter ended June 30, beating estimates of$3.71 billion, while itsnet profit declined to $79.9 million from$331 million last year.
On a per share basis, the company earned 14 cents, below estimates of18 cents.
Sea also said CFO Tony Hou had stepped down from its board of directors.
Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath
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