Sea Limited (SE) Stock Rises 5% After Q1 Revenue Smashes Estimates

TLDR

• Sea Limited (SE) stock rose 5.4% after Q1 revenue hit $7.1B, beating the $6.45B estimate by a wide margin
• Earnings per share came in at $0.67, missing the $0.76 analyst consensus
• Shopee hit a record GMV of $37.3B, up 30.2% year-over-year
• Garena posted its best quarter since 2021, with bookings up 20.1% to $931.4M
• Monee revenue surged 57.8% to $1.2B, with loan book growing 71.3% YoY

Sea Limited (SE) posted first-quarter 2026 results on May 12 that sent the stock up 5.4%, even as earnings missed expectations. The market’s reaction was driven by a revenue figure that landed well above what Wall Street was looking for.

Sea Limited, SE

Revenue came in at $7.1 billion for the quarter, beating the $6.45 billion analyst estimate. That’s a 46.6% jump from the $4.8 billion reported in Q1 2025. Adjusted EPS was $0.67, falling short of the $0.76 consensus by $0.09.

Net income rose 6.7% to $438.2 million. Total adjusted EBITDA grew 9.3% year-over-year to $1.0 billion.

CEO Forrest Li said the company is leaning into investments to deepen its competitive position while keeping financial discipline in check.

Shopee Hits Record GMV

Shopee, the e-commerce arm, delivered its best quarter on record. Gross merchandise value reached $37.3 billion, up 30.2% year-over-year. Revenue for the segment grew 44.4% to $4.5 billion.

Core marketplace revenue — which includes transaction fees and advertising — jumped 61.0% to $3.8 billion. That’s the number that matters most for long-term monetization.

Shopee’s adjusted EBITDA slipped to $223.2 million from $264.4 million in Q1 2025. The company attributed this to deliberate investment spending. Sea confirmed it remains on track to grow Shopee’s annual GMV by around 25% year-over-year in 2026.

Gross orders for the quarter totaled 4.0 billion, up 29.3% year-over-year. Li called it another record-setting quarter across GMV, order volume, and revenue.

Garena’s Best Quarter Since 2021

Garena, the gaming unit, came back strong. Bookings climbed 20.1% to $931.4 million, while revenue rose 40.6% to $696.6 million.

Adjusted EBITDA for Garena grew 25.2% to $573.6 million. The segment’s EBITDA margin was 61.6% of bookings, up from 59.1% in Q1 2025.

Free Fire continued to drive the division, with Arena of Valor posting record contributions. Quarterly active users came in at 666.5 million, nearly flat year-over-year, but paying users grew 12.4% to 72.6 million.

Monee, the digital financial services unit, kept pace. Revenue rose 57.8% to $1.2 billion, with adjusted EBITDA up 14% to $275.2 million. The consumer and SME loan book reached $9.9 billion, a 71.3% year-over-year increase.

Non-performing loans held steady at 1.1% of total loans, which is a number management watches closely as the loan book scales.

During Q1, Sea repurchased 1.8 million of its own stock for $168.4 million as part of its $1.0 billion buyback program.

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