Sea Limited Shares Gained Nearly 5% in Morning Trading

Sea Limited shares gained nearly 5% in morning trading.

Sea Limited is set to release fourth-quarter 2021 results on Mar 1.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for loss has widened by 3 cents to 94 cents per share over the past 30 days. Sea Limited reported a loss of 87 cents per share in the year-ago quarter.

The consensus mark for revenues is currently pegged at $2.97 billion, indicating 47.96% growth from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

The company’s earnings missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in all of the trailing four quarters, the negative earnings surprise being 56.04%.

Let’s see how things have shaped up before this announcement.

Factors at Play for Q4 Results

Sea Limited's digital entertainment (Garena) and e-commerce businesses are expected to continue to capitalize on changing consumer behavior in the fourth quarter.

Garena is likely to have benefited from the continued popularity of Free Fireamid stiff competition fromTencentTCEHY.

Per SensorTowerdata, in google play, Free Firewas the second most revenue-generating game worldwide in December 2021, beating Tencent's PUBG Mobile. Free Fire was also the highest-grossing game in October 2021.

The company's e-commerce segment is likely to have gained traction from a strong uptick in Shopee, its online shopping platform. Additionally, SeaMoney's strengthening integration with Shopee is expected to have aided Sea's digital financial services business.

Higher expenses related to the expansion of e-commerce services and continued efforts to integrate the company's mobile wallet services with the Shopee platform across different markets are expected to have negatively impacted profitability in the to-be-reported quarter.

What Our Model Indicates

Per the Zacks model, the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. But that's not the case here.

Sea Limited has an Earnings ESP of -6.95% and a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they're reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.