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Amirzahed

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- AmirzahedAmirzahed
  ·2022-03-01
  Why are you comparing to Lazada? Their main competitor in ASEAN is Bukalapak and Tokopedia.50% of ASEAN e-Commerce GMV is in Indonesia and Lazada dosent even operate there. Not to mention only 10% of Indon MSMEs are digital, soIndonesia's potential E-Commerce Market size is much bigger than it is now. Lazada died a long time ago
  Sea Limited: Buy, Sell Or Hold?
  SummarySea Limited is a technology conglomerate consisting of digital entertainment, e-commerce, and
  Sea Limited: Buy, Sell Or Hold?
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Their main competitor in ASEAN is Bukalapak and Tokopedia.50% of ASEAN e-Commerce GMV is in Indonesia and Lazada dosent even operate there. Not to mention only 10% of Indon MSMEs are digital, soIndonesia's potential E-Commerce Market size is much bigger than it is now. Lazada died a long time ago","listText":"Why are you comparing to Lazada? Their main competitor in ASEAN is Bukalapak and Tokopedia.50% of ASEAN e-Commerce GMV is in Indonesia and Lazada dosent even operate there. Not to mention only 10% of Indon MSMEs are digital, soIndonesia's potential E-Commerce Market size is much bigger than it is now. Lazada died a long time ago","text":"Why are you comparing to Lazada? Their main competitor in ASEAN is Bukalapak and Tokopedia.50% of ASEAN e-Commerce GMV is in Indonesia and Lazada dosent even operate there. Not to mention only 10% of Indon MSMEs are digital, soIndonesia's potential E-Commerce Market size is much bigger than it is now. Lazada died a long time ago","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9039727126","repostId":"1140639018","repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1140639018","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1646113621,"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/1140639018?lang=&edition=fundamental","pubTime":"2022-03-01 13:47","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Sea Limited: Buy, Sell Or Hold?","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1140639018","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"SummarySea Limited is a technology conglomerate consisting of digital entertainment, e-commerce, and","content":"<html><head></head><body><p><b>Summary</b></p><ul><li>Sea Limited is a technology conglomerate consisting of digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital financial services.</li><li>The company is still not profitable, but can report extremely impressive growth rates in the last few quarters.</li><li>And although Sea Limited will face headwinds and competition, analysts are still expecting high growth rates for the years to come.</li></ul><p>What we witnessed in the last few years could be described as a kind of &#34;tech massacre&#34; - we have several stocks (especially technology companies) declining more than 50% and while the major indices in the United States are still close to all-time highs. Therefore, it would be wrong to talk about a major bear market or stock market crash, but it would also be wrong to ignore, that several technology stocks (in different countries around the world) declined rather steep.</p><p>One of those stocks was Sea Limited (SE). Together with many other technology stocks, Sea Limited could increase the stock price in an impressive way and from January 01, 2020, till the peak in late 2021, the stock price increased more than 800%; however, in the recent past we saw a similar steep decline with Sea Limited declining about 65% in just a few weeks.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/effe101a2592d47983328c50a2f51497\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"417\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>And after such a steep decline, the question arises quite naturally, if we are dealing with a bargain. Without any doubt, a stock losing 65% of its previous value might seem cheap. But increasing more than 800% in less than two years is impressive and might indicate overvaluation. We probably won&#39;t answer the question by just looking at the stock price but must go deeper and look at the fundamental business.</p><p><b>Business Description</b></p><p>Sea Limited is a technology conglomerate consisting of digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital financial services. The company, which was founded in 2009, was formerly known as Garena Interactive Holding Limited and changed its name to Sea Limited in April 2017. Today, the business has 33,000 employees and is the holding company for three major businesses:</p><ul><li><b>Garena</b>: A digital entertainment platform and one of the leaders in games development (games are including the famous and success Garena Free Fire) and probably the leader in esports in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Brazil (according to Annual Report). In Q3/21, the business had 729 million quarterly active users and 93.2 million quarterly paying users.</li><li><b>Shopee</b>: An ecommerce platform connecting buyers and sellers and the largest in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, which offers integrated payment and logistics infrastructure and other services for sellers. It was the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia in 2020 by GMV and total orders and in Q3/21, gross merchandise value was $16.8 billion and gross orders were 1.7 billion in total.</li><li><b>SeaMoney</b>: The financial services and payment segment, which is the leading financial services and payment provider in Southeast Asia. It offers mobile wallet and payments services like AirPay, ShopeePay or SPayLater. In Q3/21, the total payment volume for mobile wallet was $4.6 billion.</li></ul><p>In fiscal 2020, Sea Limited generated $4,376 million in revenue and compared to $2,175 million in revenue in the previous year, this is an increase of 101.1%. And while the company could increase its gross profit from $605 million in 2019 to $1,349 million in 2020, it still had to report an operating loss in 2020 ($1,303 million and therefore an even higher loss than in 2019). However, adjusted EBITDA was $107 million in 2020 compared to a loss of $179 million in the year before.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/69bb400205973c8ac991cd0418cfa22e\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"1013\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Sea Limited Q3/21 Infographic</span></p><p>In the third quarter of fiscal 2021, Sea Limited generated $2,689 million in revenue and compared to $1,212 million in revenue in the same quarter last year, this is an increase of 122%. But while gross profit could increase 147.5% to $1,009 million, the company still is reporting an operating loss.</p><p>The business is reporting in two segments and three sub-segments: &#34;Service revenue&#34; (consisting of &#34;digital entertainment&#34; as well as &#34;E-commerce and other services&#34;) and &#34;Sales of Goods&#34;:</p><ul><li><b>Digital Entertainment</b>: This segment is offering mobile and PC online games and is generating revenue primarily by selling in-game items to players of the freemium games. It is also generating revenue from offering eSports operations and other entertainment content. In Q3/21, this segment generated $1,099 million in quarterly revenue (41% of total revenue).</li><li><b>E-commerce and other services</b>: This segment is mostly generating revenue from e-commerce marketplace services and digital financial services. The business is offering sellers paid advertisement services and is charging transaction-based fees. Additionally, Sea Limited is generating revenue from interest and fees from loans granted to commercial and consumer customers. In Q3/21, this segment generated $1,310 million in quarterly revenue (49% of total revenue).</li><li><b>Sales of Goods</b>: Sea Limited is generating revenue as the company is also purchasing products from manufacturer or third parties and is selling it directly on its own Shopee platform. In Q3/21, this segment generated $280 million in revenue (10% of total revenue).</li></ul><p>When looking at digital entertainment, quarterly active users increased from 572.4 million in Q3/20 to 729.0 million in Q3/21 (resulting in 27% YoY growth). Quarterly paying users increased even 43% YoY from 65.3 million in Q3/20 to 93.2 million in Q3/21.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/db774740c4f143c0ade000bc242cc4d2\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"361\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Sea Limited Q3/21 Presentation</span></p><p>When looking at e-commerce, we see much higher growth rates. Total number of gross orders increased from 0.7 billion in Q3/20 to 1.7 billion in Q3/21, which is resulting in 123% year-over-year growth. And gross merchandise volume increased from $9.3 billion in Q3/20 to $16.8 billion in Q3/21 resulting in 81% YoY growth.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/90b2945a1a34073d6712a4facc20b9a4\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"359\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Sea Limited Q3/21 Presentation</span></p><p><b>Headwinds</b></p><p>Despite these impressive growth rates Sea Limited is reporting, the stock nevertheless fell 60% in a very short timeframe, and we can assume that the business is facing some headwinds. And a few weeks ago, it was announced that Tencent Holdings Limited (OTCPK:TCEHY) is selling its stake in Sea Limited, which caused the stock of Sea Limited to tumble about 10%. We therefore can assume, that Tencent selling its stake is a bad sign for the long-term prospects of Sea Limited, but we must put this into context. First,Tencent sold only about $3 billion worth of shares and trimmed its stake from 21.3% to 18.7%. Second, Tencent is also selling other stakes it has: The company also announced it will distribute its shares ofJD.com(JD) as special dividend to its shareholders. And therefore, we should not be worried. Tencent is probably trying to be less like a monopoly, that has controlling stakes in many different businesses to avoid getting in the crosshairs of the Chinese government in the future.</p><p>And while the news, that Tencent was selling shares made the stock slip more than 10%, the news a few weeks ago, that India&#39;s government had issued a ban of 54 apps, which it links to China - including Garena Free Fire - sent the shares of Sea Limited even 20% down in a single day. India has already banned several apps in June 2020 - including TikTok and WeChat. But we also must put these numbers into context. According to different sources , Free Fire sales in India are only responsible for 3% of Sea&#39;s gaming revenue and only for 1.2% of total sales. In the 2020 Annual Report (20-F file), I could only find the information, that &#34;Rest of Asia&#34; - which is including India - was responsible for 15.0% of total revenue in fiscal 2020. Losing India as market will probably hurt Sea Limited, but in this early phase it should not create a serious, long-term problem.</p><p><b>Profitability and Competition</b></p><p>The two above mentioned headwinds are probably rather short-term. A bigger problem could be the fact, that Sea Limited is still not profitable. When looking at the last ten quarters, Sea Limited wasn&#39;t profitable in any of them, and operating losses increased - at least in absolute numbers. In relative numbers, the operating loss in the last quarter was only 17% of revenue compared to 68% of revenue in Q1/19. And while R&amp;D expenses are stable at around 8%, especially selling, general &amp; administrative expenses decreased.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/46a85e0448b35bbefc81e143554694b8\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"281\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>And when considering increasing competition, Sea Limited not being profitable could become a problem. Especially when your competitors are called Alibaba (BABA) and Amazon (AMZN), this is no cause for joy. In December 2021, Amazonannounced, that it is planning to expand Amazon Prime Video to Southeast Asia and Amazon is already active in Southeast Asia - despite itslate arrivalin 2017. But not only the U.S. retail and technology giant is a serious competitor - the Chinese retail and technology giant Alibaba is also a serious competitor. During its Investor Day in December 2021, Alibaba announced its plans to drive expansion in Southeast Asia and Lazada, which is owned by Alibaba, aims to achieve much higher sales in the region. Alibaba&#39;s vision is to serve more than 300 million customers and achieve $100 billion in gross merchandise volume in a market that is expected to increase to $260 billion in 2025.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/93615c3cb2728beaebe18c1813a932d7\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"297\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Alibaba Investor Day 2021 Presentation</span></p><p>While I don&#39;t know how serious Amazon must be taken as a competitor - Lazada (and therefore Alibaba) should not be ignored.</p><p><b>Balance Sheet</b></p><p>Amazon and Alibaba are certainly two competitors, Sea Limited must take seriously. But in this context, it is worth mentioning, that Sea Limited has a great balance sheet, which is a valuable asset.</p><p>As of September 30, 2021, Sea Limited has no debt on its balance sheet, which is great for a company that is not yet profitable. On the asset side, Sea Limited has $477 million in goodwill (only 2.5% of $18,549 million in total assets) and $706 million in short-term investments as well as $11,126 million in cash and cash equivalents. This is resulting in almost $12 billion of very liquid assets, that Sea Limited can use to drive growth and expand its business. At the time of writing, these liquid assets are about one sixth of the company&#39;s market capitalization.</p><p>And Sea Limited already managed to generate a positive free cash flow in the last few quarters - therefore we also must not be afraid of Sea Limited burning cash and decreasing the short-term investments and cash reserves on the balance sheet.</p><p><b>Growth</b></p><p>But while Sea Limited is still not profitable and might be facing increased competition, the company is also reporting extremely impressive growth rates. When looking at the last ten quarters, there is only a single quarter in which Sea Limited could not grow in the triple-digits. And gross profit is growing at even higher rates than revenue.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/221525dd315705d008debaa5e6ce8cd5\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"154\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>Analysts are expecting growth rates to slow down in the years to come. Analysts are also not really providing estimates for earnings per share as this number is difficult to estimate. But analysts are providing estimates for revenue, and we can see growth slowing down (not anywhere near to the triple-digit growth rates of the last few quarters). On the other hand, growth rates between 10% and 20% for revenue are still extremely impressive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/60acae4293bf3942c4e6cc3a1c1b21c5\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"357\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>When asking the question where growth could stem from, the Southeast Asia e-commerce market is expected to grow with a high pace. According to the above-mentioned Alibaba investor presentation, the market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 27% between 2020 and 2025 and this should enable Sea Limited to grow with the market at a high pace (even without taking market shares).</p><p>And Sea Limited is generating about two thirds of its revenue in Southeast Asia (fiscal 2020 numbers), but the company is also expanding to other markets. Especially revenue from Latin America is increasing with a high pace. While in 2018, only 1.8% of revenue stemmed from Latin America, in 2020 it was already 18.1% of total revenue. And according to Statista, retail e-commerce sales are also expected to increase with a high pace - from $85 billion in 2021 to $160 billion in 2025 resulting in a CAGR of 17%.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ccd6e627c089bd4304ecb325a571c93a\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"182\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Sea Limited Annual Report 2020</span></p><p>Sea Limited is also writing in its annual report about the growth potential:</p><blockquote>Our seven markets in Southeast Asia and Taiwan were estimated to have 608.1 million people and a GDP of US$3.6 trillion in 2020 according to the IMF World Economic Outlook Database. Southeast Asia and Taiwan region is also one of the world&#39;s fastest growing regions based on per capita GDP and, moreover, at the early stages of internet penetration. In addition, the Latin America region (including the Caribbean) was estimated to have 637.1 million people and a GDP of US$4.2 trillion in 2020 according to the IMF World Economic Outlook Database. Many of our global 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 our own. Our culturally rich and diverse markets observe a rise in traditionally underserved digital consumers, who require dedicated focus, resources, and respective local market knowledge.</blockquote><p>Without much doubt, high growth rates can be achieved in Southeast Asia as well as Latin America. And aspects like gaming and e-commerce could take off in the years to come and Sea Limited is set up to profit from this growing market. However, many different scenarios are possible. In theory, Sea Limited can increase its revenue substantially for years to come as it can still grow in its core markets, which are expected to grow with a high pace and Sea Limited can also expand to other countries and markets. But if the company is successful against competitors is a different story and hard to predict.</p><p><b>Intrinsic Value Calculation</b></p><p>In a final step, as always, we must look at the stock price and compare it to the fundamental business to determine if we are talking about a solid investment or not. In case of Sea Limited, we can&#39;t look at the P/E ratio as the company is not profitable yet. Instead, we can look at the price-to-free-cash-flow ratio, but the numbers are not useful at this point (260 times free cash flow right now). The only useful simple valuation metric is the price-sales ratio.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/6ee0c00f5fa2822e47170487befb92d3\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"467\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>Sea Limited is trading for 9.33 times sales right now after it had already been trading for 30 times sales about one year ago. When comparing to some peers, we see Alibaba trading only for 2.77 times sales and Amazon trading for 3.43 times sales. And from that point of view, Sea Limited seems to be expensive. But we must point out, that Sea Limited is probably able to grow with a much higher pace for several years to come and especially due to its gaming segment, Sea Limited should be able to achieve higher margins justifying a higher P/S ratio. We can rather compare the business to Tencent (also generating a huge part of its sales from gaming and fintech), which is trading for 7.01 times sales and therefore in a similar range as Sea Limited.</p><p>Usually, I am trying to calculate an intrinsic value by using a discount cash flow calculation, but this is extremely difficult as we have so many variables affecting the calculation and stability as well as consistency are still missing. For example, the number of outstanding shares is still increasing. And although this is not untypical for younger companies, it is not what shareholders like to see and it is making it difficult to calculate an intrinsic value by using DCF analysis.</p><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a1524f6ae7e7435b02326948f99bfafc\" tg-width=\"635\" tg-height=\"417\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/><span>Data by YCharts</span></p><p>It is also difficult to estimate growth rates in the years to come: While it seems obvious that growth will slow down, we don&#39;t know how fast. And finally, we must estimate when Sea Limited will get profitable, what margins the company can achieve and how much free cash flow it can generate. Summing up, I don&#39;t want to put a price tag on Sea Limited right now as I don&#39;t think I can provide a useful intrinsic value calculation for the stock at this point. However, if Sea Limited should be able to grow with a high pace (and we don&#39;t have to see triple digit or high double-digit growth) and become profitable to a similar level as Tencent, the business could be undervalued right now.</p><p><b>Conclusion</b></p><p>I usually try to avoid investing in unprofitable businesses as a huge range of outcomes is possible for these rather young companies. And investing is always a bet to some degree as we can never be certain. I am not saying that Sea Limited could not be an incredible investment, but it is extremely difficult for me to put a price tag on the stock. And extreme fluctuations will continue as investors could have extremely different opinions what the stock should be worth.</p><p>I would rate Sea Limited as a hold right now as it is difficult to make a case for Sea Limited being undervalued or overvalued. On March 01, 2022, Sea Limited will report the next quarterly results, and this might give us some hints again how to valuate Sea Limited.</p></body></html>","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Sea Limited: Buy, Sell Or Hold?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nSea Limited: Buy, Sell Or Hold?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-03-01 13:47 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4491285-sea-limited-stock-buy-sell-hold><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummarySea Limited is a technology conglomerate consisting of digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital financial services.The company is still not profitable, but can report extremely impressive...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4491285-sea-limited-stock-buy-sell-hold\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"SE":"Sea Ltd"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4491285-sea-limited-stock-buy-sell-hold","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1140639018","content_text":"SummarySea Limited is a technology conglomerate consisting of digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital financial services.The company is still not profitable, but can report extremely impressive growth rates in the last few quarters.And although Sea Limited will face headwinds and competition, analysts are still expecting high growth rates for the years to come.What we witnessed in the last few years could be described as a kind of \"tech massacre\" - we have several stocks (especially technology companies) declining more than 50% and while the major indices in the United States are still close to all-time highs. Therefore, it would be wrong to talk about a major bear market or stock market crash, but it would also be wrong to ignore, that several technology stocks (in different countries around the world) declined rather steep.One of those stocks was Sea Limited (SE). Together with many other technology stocks, Sea Limited could increase the stock price in an impressive way and from January 01, 2020, till the peak in late 2021, the stock price increased more than 800%; however, in the recent past we saw a similar steep decline with Sea Limited declining about 65% in just a few weeks.Data by YChartsAnd after such a steep decline, the question arises quite naturally, if we are dealing with a bargain. Without any doubt, a stock losing 65% of its previous value might seem cheap. But increasing more than 800% in less than two years is impressive and might indicate overvaluation. We probably won't answer the question by just looking at the stock price but must go deeper and look at the fundamental business.Business DescriptionSea Limited is a technology conglomerate consisting of digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital financial services. The company, which was founded in 2009, was formerly known as Garena Interactive Holding Limited and changed its name to Sea Limited in April 2017. Today, the business has 33,000 employees and is the holding company for three major businesses:Garena: A digital entertainment platform and one of the leaders in games development (games are including the famous and success Garena Free Fire) and probably the leader in esports in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Brazil (according to Annual Report). In Q3/21, the business had 729 million quarterly active users and 93.2 million quarterly paying users.Shopee: An ecommerce platform connecting buyers and sellers and the largest in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, which offers integrated payment and logistics infrastructure and other services for sellers. It was the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia in 2020 by GMV and total orders and in Q3/21, gross merchandise value was $16.8 billion and gross orders were 1.7 billion in total.SeaMoney: The financial services and payment segment, which is the leading financial services and payment provider in Southeast Asia. It offers mobile wallet and payments services like AirPay, ShopeePay or SPayLater. In Q3/21, the total payment volume for mobile wallet was $4.6 billion.In fiscal 2020, Sea Limited generated $4,376 million in revenue and compared to $2,175 million in revenue in the previous year, this is an increase of 101.1%. And while the company could increase its gross profit from $605 million in 2019 to $1,349 million in 2020, it still had to report an operating loss in 2020 ($1,303 million and therefore an even higher loss than in 2019). However, adjusted EBITDA was $107 million in 2020 compared to a loss of $179 million in the year before.Sea Limited Q3/21 InfographicIn the third quarter of fiscal 2021, Sea Limited generated $2,689 million in revenue and compared to $1,212 million in revenue in the same quarter last year, this is an increase of 122%. But while gross profit could increase 147.5% to $1,009 million, the company still is reporting an operating loss.The business is reporting in two segments and three sub-segments: \"Service revenue\" (consisting of \"digital entertainment\" as well as \"E-commerce and other services\") and \"Sales of Goods\":Digital Entertainment: This segment is offering mobile and PC online games and is generating revenue primarily by selling in-game items to players of the freemium games. It is also generating revenue from offering eSports operations and other entertainment content. In Q3/21, this segment generated $1,099 million in quarterly revenue (41% of total revenue).E-commerce and other services: This segment is mostly generating revenue from e-commerce marketplace services and digital financial services. The business is offering sellers paid advertisement services and is charging transaction-based fees. Additionally, Sea Limited is generating revenue from interest and fees from loans granted to commercial and consumer customers. In Q3/21, this segment generated $1,310 million in quarterly revenue (49% of total revenue).Sales of Goods: Sea Limited is generating revenue as the company is also purchasing products from manufacturer or third parties and is selling it directly on its own Shopee platform. In Q3/21, this segment generated $280 million in revenue (10% of total revenue).When looking at digital entertainment, quarterly active users increased from 572.4 million in Q3/20 to 729.0 million in Q3/21 (resulting in 27% YoY growth). Quarterly paying users increased even 43% YoY from 65.3 million in Q3/20 to 93.2 million in Q3/21.Sea Limited Q3/21 PresentationWhen looking at e-commerce, we see much higher growth rates. Total number of gross orders increased from 0.7 billion in Q3/20 to 1.7 billion in Q3/21, which is resulting in 123% year-over-year growth. And gross merchandise volume increased from $9.3 billion in Q3/20 to $16.8 billion in Q3/21 resulting in 81% YoY growth.Sea Limited Q3/21 PresentationHeadwindsDespite these impressive growth rates Sea Limited is reporting, the stock nevertheless fell 60% in a very short timeframe, and we can assume that the business is facing some headwinds. And a few weeks ago, it was announced that Tencent Holdings Limited (OTCPK:TCEHY) is selling its stake in Sea Limited, which caused the stock of Sea Limited to tumble about 10%. We therefore can assume, that Tencent selling its stake is a bad sign for the long-term prospects of Sea Limited, but we must put this into context. First,Tencent sold only about $3 billion worth of shares and trimmed its stake from 21.3% to 18.7%. Second, Tencent is also selling other stakes it has: The company also announced it will distribute its shares ofJD.com(JD) as special dividend to its shareholders. And therefore, we should not be worried. Tencent is probably trying to be less like a monopoly, that has controlling stakes in many different businesses to avoid getting in the crosshairs of the Chinese government in the future.And while the news, that Tencent was selling shares made the stock slip more than 10%, the news a few weeks ago, that India's government had issued a ban of 54 apps, which it links to China - including Garena Free Fire - sent the shares of Sea Limited even 20% down in a single day. India has already banned several apps in June 2020 - including TikTok and WeChat. But we also must put these numbers into context. According to different sources , Free Fire sales in India are only responsible for 3% of Sea's gaming revenue and only for 1.2% of total sales. In the 2020 Annual Report (20-F file), I could only find the information, that \"Rest of Asia\" - which is including India - was responsible for 15.0% of total revenue in fiscal 2020. Losing India as market will probably hurt Sea Limited, but in this early phase it should not create a serious, long-term problem.Profitability and CompetitionThe two above mentioned headwinds are probably rather short-term. A bigger problem could be the fact, that Sea Limited is still not profitable. When looking at the last ten quarters, Sea Limited wasn't profitable in any of them, and operating losses increased - at least in absolute numbers. In relative numbers, the operating loss in the last quarter was only 17% of revenue compared to 68% of revenue in Q1/19. And while R&D expenses are stable at around 8%, especially selling, general & administrative expenses decreased.And when considering increasing competition, Sea Limited not being profitable could become a problem. Especially when your competitors are called Alibaba (BABA) and Amazon (AMZN), this is no cause for joy. In December 2021, Amazonannounced, that it is planning to expand Amazon Prime Video to Southeast Asia and Amazon is already active in Southeast Asia - despite itslate arrivalin 2017. But not only the U.S. retail and technology giant is a serious competitor - the Chinese retail and technology giant Alibaba is also a serious competitor. During its Investor Day in December 2021, Alibaba announced its plans to drive expansion in Southeast Asia and Lazada, which is owned by Alibaba, aims to achieve much higher sales in the region. Alibaba's vision is to serve more than 300 million customers and achieve $100 billion in gross merchandise volume in a market that is expected to increase to $260 billion in 2025.Alibaba Investor Day 2021 PresentationWhile I don't know how serious Amazon must be taken as a competitor - Lazada (and therefore Alibaba) should not be ignored.Balance SheetAmazon and Alibaba are certainly two competitors, Sea Limited must take seriously. But in this context, it is worth mentioning, that Sea Limited has a great balance sheet, which is a valuable asset.As of September 30, 2021, Sea Limited has no debt on its balance sheet, which is great for a company that is not yet profitable. On the asset side, Sea Limited has $477 million in goodwill (only 2.5% of $18,549 million in total assets) and $706 million in short-term investments as well as $11,126 million in cash and cash equivalents. This is resulting in almost $12 billion of very liquid assets, that Sea Limited can use to drive growth and expand its business. At the time of writing, these liquid assets are about one sixth of the company's market capitalization.And Sea Limited already managed to generate a positive free cash flow in the last few quarters - therefore we also must not be afraid of Sea Limited burning cash and decreasing the short-term investments and cash reserves on the balance sheet.GrowthBut while Sea Limited is still not profitable and might be facing increased competition, the company is also reporting extremely impressive growth rates. When looking at the last ten quarters, there is only a single quarter in which Sea Limited could not grow in the triple-digits. And gross profit is growing at even higher rates than revenue.Analysts are expecting growth rates to slow down in the years to come. Analysts are also not really providing estimates for earnings per share as this number is difficult to estimate. But analysts are providing estimates for revenue, and we can see growth slowing down (not anywhere near to the triple-digit growth rates of the last few quarters). On the other hand, growth rates between 10% and 20% for revenue are still extremely impressive.When asking the question where growth could stem from, the Southeast Asia e-commerce market is expected to grow with a high pace. According to the above-mentioned Alibaba investor presentation, the market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 27% between 2020 and 2025 and this should enable Sea Limited to grow with the market at a high pace (even without taking market shares).And Sea Limited is generating about two thirds of its revenue in Southeast Asia (fiscal 2020 numbers), but the company is also expanding to other markets. Especially revenue from Latin America is increasing with a high pace. While in 2018, only 1.8% of revenue stemmed from Latin America, in 2020 it was already 18.1% of total revenue. And according to Statista, retail e-commerce sales are also expected to increase with a high pace - from $85 billion in 2021 to $160 billion in 2025 resulting in a CAGR of 17%.Sea Limited Annual Report 2020Sea Limited is also writing in its annual report about the growth potential:Our seven markets in Southeast Asia and Taiwan were estimated to have 608.1 million people and a GDP of US$3.6 trillion in 2020 according to the IMF World Economic Outlook Database. Southeast Asia and Taiwan region is also one of the world's fastest growing regions based on per capita GDP and, moreover, at the early stages of internet penetration. In addition, the Latin America region (including the Caribbean) was estimated to have 637.1 million people and a GDP of US$4.2 trillion in 2020 according to the IMF World Economic Outlook Database. Many of our global 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 our own. Our culturally rich and diverse markets observe a rise in traditionally underserved digital consumers, who require dedicated focus, resources, and respective local market knowledge.Without much doubt, high growth rates can be achieved in Southeast Asia as well as Latin America. And aspects like gaming and e-commerce could take off in the years to come and Sea Limited is set up to profit from this growing market. However, many different scenarios are possible. In theory, Sea Limited can increase its revenue substantially for years to come as it can still grow in its core markets, which are expected to grow with a high pace and Sea Limited can also expand to other countries and markets. But if the company is successful against competitors is a different story and hard to predict.Intrinsic Value CalculationIn a final step, as always, we must look at the stock price and compare it to the fundamental business to determine if we are talking about a solid investment or not. In case of Sea Limited, we can't look at the P/E ratio as the company is not profitable yet. Instead, we can look at the price-to-free-cash-flow ratio, but the numbers are not useful at this point (260 times free cash flow right now). The only useful simple valuation metric is the price-sales ratio.Data by YChartsSea Limited is trading for 9.33 times sales right now after it had already been trading for 30 times sales about one year ago. When comparing to some peers, we see Alibaba trading only for 2.77 times sales and Amazon trading for 3.43 times sales. And from that point of view, Sea Limited seems to be expensive. But we must point out, that Sea Limited is probably able to grow with a much higher pace for several years to come and especially due to its gaming segment, Sea Limited should be able to achieve higher margins justifying a higher P/S ratio. We can rather compare the business to Tencent (also generating a huge part of its sales from gaming and fintech), which is trading for 7.01 times sales and therefore in a similar range as Sea Limited.Usually, I am trying to calculate an intrinsic value by using a discount cash flow calculation, but this is extremely difficult as we have so many variables affecting the calculation and stability as well as consistency are still missing. For example, the number of outstanding shares is still increasing. And although this is not untypical for younger companies, it is not what shareholders like to see and it is making it difficult to calculate an intrinsic value by using DCF analysis.Data by YChartsIt is also difficult to estimate growth rates in the years to come: While it seems obvious that growth will slow down, we don't know how fast. And finally, we must estimate when Sea Limited will get profitable, what margins the company can achieve and how much free cash flow it can generate. Summing up, I don't want to put a price tag on Sea Limited right now as I don't think I can provide a useful intrinsic value calculation for the stock at this point. However, if Sea Limited should be able to grow with a high pace (and we don't have to see triple digit or high double-digit growth) and become profitable to a similar level as Tencent, the business could be undervalued right now.ConclusionI usually try to avoid investing in unprofitable businesses as a huge range of outcomes is possible for these rather young companies. And investing is always a bet to some degree as we can never be certain. I am not saying that Sea Limited could not be an incredible investment, but it is extremely difficult for me to put a price tag on the stock. And extreme fluctuations will continue as investors could have extremely different opinions what the stock should be worth.I would rate Sea Limited as a hold right now as it is difficult to make a case for Sea Limited being undervalued or overvalued. On March 01, 2022, Sea Limited will report the next quarterly results, and this might give us some hints again how to valuate Sea Limited.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":290,"authorTweetTopStatus":1,"verified":2,"comments":[],"imageCount":0,"langContent":"EN","totalScore":0}],"defaultTab":"posts","isTTM":true}