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Sea founder Forrest Li told employees a trillion dollar market capitalisation – an increase of about 10 times – is possible as the Southeast Asia e-commerce leader joins tech companies globally betting on artificial intelligence for growth. In a memo to staff Monday, seen by Bloomberg News, Li compared the rapid growth of AI to the personal computer and smartphone revolutions that expanded consumer access to products and services once available only to the wealthy. But Li said it would not be easy for the gaming and online retail giant to harness the value creation AI would bring. “It will require us to make the right calls, execute extremely well, remain very disciplined and compete relentlessly,” Li said in the memo on the eighth anniversary of Sea’s stock-market debut. “But a tech transition like this makes it possible” for Sea to be a trillion dollar company, he said. Li, who is fond of penning memos to Sea’s 80,000-plus employees, takes a different tone from a year earlier, when he warned of a difficult transition to AI. Since then, Sea has doubled down on the technology, integrating AI into its daily operations in areas such as customer service and gaming. Li also touched on the company’s rising share price, relaying fears that it might fall quickly if the external environment changed – echoing memories of its crash at the end of 2021. He said the company was in a better position financially than in the previous decade and did not need to rely on external capital to fund growth. “While the external environment will always be unpredictable, I feel much more settled today about our future,” he wrote, adding that Sea was now profitable across all its three business units. “After eight years as a public company, we better understand how the capital market behaves and how to navigate it. So, even if the seas turn choppy again, we are in much greater control of our own decisions and our own destiny.” Li stopped short of giving details of Sea’s plans for further AI development or explaining how the company would address ever-intensifying competition. Sea is battling deep-pocketed global challengers including ByteDance’s TikTok Shop and Alibaba Group Holding’s Lazada. Emerging players like Shein and PDD Holdings’ Temu are also looking to break into Southeast Asia, an emerging region of 675 million people where more shoppers are coming online. A new battleground for Sea’s next stage of growth is also forming an ocean away from its home ground – in Brazil – as the Singaporean company looks to expand its Shopee online empire. The company is also betting on new initiatives from digital finance to logistics to grow its dominance and convince investors of its growth potential.
