Sea Limited today announced its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2021.
Sea reported quarterly losses of $(0.62) per share which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $(0.53) by 16.98 percent. This is a 19.23 percent decrease over losses of $(0.52) per share from the same period last year. The company reported quarterly sales of $1.80 billion which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $1.81 billion by 0.55 percent. This is a 96.95 percent increase over sales of $913.92 million the same period last year.
Sea stock tumbled 7% once in premarket trading.
First Quarter 2021 Highlights
▪ Group
o Total GAAP revenue was US$1.8 billion, up 146.7% year-on-year.
o Total gross profit was US$645.4 million, up 212.1% year-on-year.
o Total adjusted EBITDA1 was US$88.1 million compared to US$(69.9) million for the first quarter of 2020.
▪ Digital Entertainment
o Bookings2 were US$1.1 billion, up 117.4% year-on-year.
o Adjusted EBITDA1 was US$717.3 million, up 140.4% year-on-year.
o Adjusted EBITDA represented 64.4% of bookings for the first quarter of 2021, compared to 58.2% for the first quarter of 2020.
o GAAP revenue was US$781.3 million, up 111.4% year-on-year.
o Quarterly active users (“QAUs”) reached 648.8 million, an increase of 61.4% yearon-year.
o Quarterly paying users grew by 123.5% year-on-year to 79.8 million, and represented 12.3% of QAUs for the first quarter compared to 8.9% for the same period in 2020.
o Average bookings per user were US$1.7, compared to US$1.3 for the first quarter of 2020.
o Our self-developed global hit game, Free Fire, continued to be the highest grossing mobile game in Latin America, Southeast Asia and India for the first quarter of 2021, according to App Annie3 . Free Fire has maintained this leading position for the past seven consecutive quarters in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and two consecutive quarters in India.
▪ E-commerce
o GAAP revenue was US$922.3 million, up 250.4% year-on-year.
o GAAP revenue included US$715.9 million of GAAP marketplace revenue4, up 285.0% year-on-year, and US$206.4 million of GAAP product revenue 5, up 167.1% year-on-year.
o Gross orders totaled 1.1 billion, an increase of 153.0% year-on-year.
o Gross merchandise value (“GMV”) was US$12.6 billion, an increase of 103.2% year-on-year.
o Adjusted EBITDA1 was US$(412.9) million compared to US$(264.1) million for the first quarter of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA loss per order decreased by 37.7% year-on-year to US$0.38, compared to US$0.61 for the first quarter of 2020.
o Both in Southeast Asia and in Taiwan, Shopee ranked first in the Shopping category by average monthly active users and total time spent in app on Android for the first quarter of 2021, according to App Annie3.
o In Indonesia, where Shopee further accelerated its year-on-year growth in gross orders, it continued to rank first by average monthly active users and total time spent in app on Android in the Shopping category for the first quarter of 2021, according to App Annie.
Digital Financial Services Update
We continued to see strong growth in the adoption of SeaMoney’s offerings. Our mobile wallet total payment volume exceeded US$3.4 billion for the first quarter of 2021, more than tripled that of the first quarter of 2020. Moreover, quarterly paying users for our mobile wallet services surpassed 26.1 million in the first quarter.
Conversions of Convertible Notes
Between March 5, 2021 (the date we last disclosed the outstanding principal amount of our convertible notes) and May 10, 2021, we issued an aggregate of approximately 4.8 million shares to settle conversions of our outstanding convertible notes, namely our 2.25% convertible senior notes due 2023 (the “2023 notes”) and our 1.00% convertible senior notes due 2024 (the “2024 notes”). In aggregate, such conversions are estimated to result in more than US$8.3 million of saving to us in future interest payments.
As of May 10, 2021, we had 524,433,502 ordinary shares issued and outstanding and approximately US$33.5 million, US$825.1 million and US$1.15 billion principal amount of the 2023 notes, 2024 notes and 2.375% convertible senior notes due 2025 remaining outstanding, respectively.