heast Asian tech firms. Sea’s e-commerce arm, particularly the Shopee app, has proven to be resilient in the face of fierce competition from major players like Alibaba Group’s Lazada, ByteDance’s TikTok, and emerging platforms such as PDD’s Temu.  Analysts noted that Shopee has increased its market share, particularly in Indonesia, following the ban on TikTok’s online shopping service in the country. TikTok recently acquired a majority stake in Tokopedia, enabling it to relaunch its online shopping operations in Indonesia. A closer look Sea posted a net profit of US$162.7million and cash of US$8.5 billion in FY23. Group revenue was US$13.1 billion, up 4.9 per cent year-on-year. E-commerce revenue was US$9.0 billion in FY23, up 23.5 per cent year-on-year. Gross merchandise volume (GMV) was US$78.5 billion, up 6.8 per cent year-on-year.  Adjusted EBITDA was US$213.8 million in FY23, compared to US$1.7 billion for the full year of 2022, and adjusted EBITDA from the company’s e-commerce arm was US$225.3 million in Q4 of FY23, versus US$346.5 million in Q3 E-commerce revenue for the fourth quarter was US$ 2.6 billion, an increase of 23.2 per cent year-on-year, and GMV was US$ 23.1 billion for the quarter,an increase of 28.6 per cent year-on-year and an increase of 15.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter. In terms of its digital financial services, SeaMoney posted its first profitable year with adjusted EBITDA of US$550.1 million, while GAAP revenue for 2023 was US$1.8 billion, up 44.0 per cent year-on-year. For the fourth quarter of 2023, digital entertainment GAAP revenue was US$510.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA was US$217.4 million. Average bookings per user were US$0.86, up 4.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter. The earnings call During an earnings call with shareholders and media, Sea’s CEO Forrest Li said that he expects 2024 to be another profitable year. He intends to maintain Shopee’s market share and expects its full-year GMV growth to be in the high teens,  and adjusted EBITDA to turn positive in the second half of this year. “To retain and strengthen our competitive advantage, Shopee’s three operational priorities in 2024 are improving service quality for buyers, enhancing the price competitiveness of our product listings, and strengthening our content ecosystem,” he was quoted as saying. On service quality for buyers, the brand will optimise delivery speed and consistency, return and refund processes and customer service.  In order to keep product listings price competitive, the brand will work with sellers who have more upstream supply chain access, provide more fulfilment, marketing and shop management services to its sellers. Holistic strategies In terms of content, Li said the brand will deepen and broaden engagement with creators, sellers and partners across the content ecosystem and better integrate live-streaming and short-form video into the shopping experience. In terms of logistics, the brand opened five new sorting centres and 385 new first- and last-mile hubs across its Asian markets, and extended its logistics network further to improve its coverage. Through more automation, tighter planning, better routing and other operational improvements, its platform logistics cost per order in Asia decreased by 12 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter.  This was partly driven by its own logistics network cost per order decreasing by 20 per cent from the same period last year.  Li also added that the brand is seeing good progress on delivery speed in markets like Indonesia. The brand has also introduced return on-spot services in Indonesia and Vietnam. This initiative has resulted in higher trust and increases in purchase frequency. In the area of live streaming e-commerce, the company has been rapidly ramping up its efforts and this segment accounted for 15 per cent of its physical order volume in Southeast Asia last December. “Shopee Brazil continued its strong performance in the fourth quarter. Its contribution margin loss per order improved by nearly 90 per cent year-on-year. This was driven by improvements in both user monetization and  cost efficiency,” Li was quoted as saying. He believes that the brand has achieved cost leadership in logistics through scale and operational efficiencies, which have been and will be key to its success in this market.  Digital financial services  Li said SeaMoney, the company’s digital financial services offering, had a strong year in 2023, primarily attributed to its consumer and SME credit business. The brand’s journey to build the credit business dates back to 2019.  He said the brand initially started by introducing ‘buy now pay later’ consumer loans and subsequently extended its offerings to cash loan services to both buyers and sellers on Shopee. “This underscores our user-centric approach, and the unique advantage offered by the Shopee ecosystem for SeaMoney to quickly achieve critical scale and profitability,” Li was quoted as saying. In 2024, he said the brand will continue to invest in user acquisition for its credit business, both on and off the Shopee platform as he sees significant upside in its markets. As the business scales up, Li said the brand will remain prudent on risk management. “In addition to our credit business, SeaMoney is also growing our digital banking and insurance services to capture future business opportunities in the digital financial services segment. We expect SeaMoney to continue its robust growth in 2024,” he was quoted as saying. The entertainment arena According to Li, Garena, the digital entertainment arm of Sea, has done well in enhancing and optimising the gaming experience for its players.  “For instance, we have continuously introduced fresh and highly localised content to Free Fire. In the fourth quarter, we collaborated with Lamborghini to allow players to drive their cars in-game,” he was quoted as saying. The brand also recently announced its collaboration with JKT48, a girl group from Jakarta, as its Indonesian brand ambassador.  Free Fire was the most downloaded mobile game globally in 2023, according to Sensor Tower. In February, the game achieved more than 100 million peak daily active users, and it remains one of the largest mobile games in the world. “With this positive momentum, we currently expect Free Fire to grow double-digits year-on-year for both user base and bookings in 2024,” he concluded.