SINGAPORE – AI use has borne fruit for e-commerce company Shopee, which saw record results in the first quarter that ended March 31.
This boosted its parent company Sea Limited’s revenue to over US$7 billion (S$8.9 billion).
Sea, which is headquartered in Singapore and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, reported revenue growth of 47 per cent year on year, during its results webcast on May 12.
Its gross profit also jumped 41 per cent, to US$3.1 billion.
Sea’s share price climbed 13 per cent on its strong financial results. It hit a price of US$96.02 on May 13 at 4pm Singapore time.
Sea chairman and chief executive officer Forrest Li said: “Shopee delivered another record-setting quarter, achieving new highs in gross merchandise value (GMV), gross order volume, and revenue while maintaining financial discipline.
GMV refers to the total value of the goods sold on Shopee over the quarter, while gross order volume is the number of orders placed on the platform.
Shopee’s GMV grew 30 per cent year on year in the first quarter and generated an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of over US$220 million.
Embedding artificial intelligence into Shopee has made a “meaningful impact”, Mr Li said.
Using AI in search and recommendation algorithms has led to better product discovery, he said. Meanwhile, AI content tools are also helping sellers to create more compelling product listings.
Around 80 per cent of customer queries are also now handled by AI chatbots, he noted.
“AI usage helped reduce customer service cost-per-contact by around 30 per cent year on year, while maintaining high satisfaction rates,” he said.
Next up for Shopee: agentic AI experiences. An AI shopping assistant is being tested to deliver personalised recommendations and help buyers save as much as possible, using their purchase history and preferences
For sellers, Shopee is building an AI agent that acts as a virtual business adviser, providing diagnostics and insights on shop performance.
Both features are in their early stages, and there are plans to eventually roll them out widely, Mr Li said.
Logistics is one of the most important differentiating factors for Shopee, he added, noting that its courier service SPX Express is one of the largest e-commerce logistics solution providers in the markets Shopee is in.
“In the first quarter, we continued to scale delivery options serving different consumer demands while maintaining cost leadership,” Mr Li said.
He added that Shopee has seen strong adoption of its instant and same-day delivery services, with lower delivery costs per order for these services compared with a year before.
For example, in Indonesia, the instant delivery service can deliver orders in urban areas within two hours.
Shopee also introduced a subscription-based ShopeeVIP programme, which gives members privileges like free doorstop delivery, exclusive seller vouchers and early access to shopping campaigns.
By the end of March, total subscribers across Shopee’s Asian markets surpassed 10 million, up more than 40 per cent from the previous quarter.
Mr Li also highlighted live streaming and short-form videos on Shopee have helped drive orders. He noted that in the first quarter, orders from such content grew 50 per cent year on year.
Farther afield, he said Brazil was Shopee’s fastest-growing market in the first quarter.
This strong performance was supported by fundamentals including a wide assortment of products at competitive prices and cost advantage in its logistics.
Shopee opened three new fulfilment centres in Brazil, bringing the total to five.
“These efforts allowed us to onboard more merchants, especially to ShopeeMall, supporting stronger spending among buyers,” he said.
“We remain confident in Brazil’s long-term growth potential and in our ability to further strengthen our competitive position in this market.”
Mr Li said Shopee is deliberate in the areas it invests in – delivery, order fulfilment, its ShopeeVIP membership programme and user base growth.
Touching on Sea’s digital finance platform Monee, Mr Li said he wants to deepen existing user relationships by offering them more credit, while getting new users, especially those in more affluent segments.
More Shopee customers are going from using the pay later function on the platform, to taking personal cash loans off Shopee.
“Notably, we are seeing strong growth in higher-value categories such as electronics and two-wheelers in Indonesia, where instalment credit plays a meaningful role in enabling such purchases,” said Mr Li.
He added that he wants Monee to expand its credit use cases beyond Shopee for future growth.
Mr Li also has plans for Garena, an online games developer and publisher with presence in 160 markets.
He noted that the Ramadan campaign in the first quarter was scaled into a global event, so players from different markets could participate even if they did not celebrate Ramadan.
Players could find treasure maps triggering team-based missions, guiding them to hidden treasure locations. The campaign saw over 120 billion impressions made across global social media platforms.
Mr Li said that overall, Sea has started 2026 well, with each business expanding on opportunities.
“Meanwhile, across our ecosystem, we see the AI era creating significant opportunities for a company like ours – with established scale, rich cross-vertical data, and deep local expertise,” he said.
