Sea Limited and Shopify Both Soar After Earings. Is E-Commerce Set a Massive Rebound?
Sea Limited, Shopify, and MercadoLibre all reported surging revenues in the same week, yet their stocks are moving in wildly different directions. The gap between winners and losers reveals exactly what growth investors are rewarding right now.
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Shares of Sea Limited (NYSE:SE | SE Price Prediction) are up 13.81% at midday Tuesday, trading near $130.65, after fresh quarterly results reignited investor enthusiasm for the Southeast Asia e-commerce, fintech, and gaming platform. The rally comes on top of a 3.28% gain over the prior week and pulls the stock well off its 10.01% year-to-date decline.
Segment Strength Fuels the Rebound
Sea’s most recently reported quarter posted revenue of $7.10 billion, up 46.61% year over year and beating consensus by 10.86%. EPS of $0.67 came in below the $0.7742 consensus, but the shortfall is being read as intentional reinvestment rather than deterioration. Adjusted EBITDA “exceeded $1 billion for the first time”, CEO Forrest Li told investors.
All three segments delivered. Shopee revenue climbed 45.1% to $5.11 billion on GMV of $37.30 billion, with gross orders of 4.0 billion. Monee, the digital financial services arm, grew 57.8% with a loan book of $9.90 billion, up 71.3%. Garena revenue of $696.6 million capped its “best quarter since 2021”, powered by a Free Fire collaboration with Jujutsu Kaisen that generated over 700 million official content views.
Monetization is the second story bulls are anchoring on. Shopee ad revenue grew 80%, purchase conversion improved 14% year over year, and AI-driven automation now handles around 80% of customer queries, reducing service cost per contact by around 30%. Management reiterated full-year Shopee GMV growth of around 25% with adjusted EBITDA no lower than 2025 in absolute dollar terms.
How Sea Stacks Up Against Shopify and MercadoLibre
The rally puts Sea back in the conversation with the two other e-commerce giants that reported last week. Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP) delivered Q2 revenue of $3.58 billion at 33.69% growth, generated $654 million in free cash flow, and returned $1.42 billion via buybacks. MercadoLibre (NASDAQ:MELI) grew revenue 49.8% to $10.17 billion, its fastest pace in four years, but operating margin compressed 550 basis points to 6.7%.
| Company | Latest Qtr Revenue | YoY Growth | YTD Price | Today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sea Limited | $7.10B | 46.61% | -10.01% | +13.81% |
| Shopify | $3.58B | 33.69% | -3.6% | -1.69% |
| MercadoLibre | $10.17B | 49.8% | -9.43% | +4.85% |
Over the last week, Shopify shares are up 32.62% as investors reward its operating leverage story: operating income grew 67.7% against 34% revenue growth, and free cash flow margin expanded to 18%. MercadoLibre stock, by contrast, is down 3.92% over the same stretch. Galperin has openly told the market he will “continue to invest at the scale and pace the opportunity demands”, and near-term margin pain is the price of admission.
Sea’s rally today suggests investors are willing to fund reinvestment when top-line growth reaccelerates. Revenue growth jumped from 38.41% in Q4 2025 to 46.61% most recently, and the EPS-miss trend has narrowed from -37.82% in Q3 2025 to -13.46%. That is the pattern quality growth investors want to see.
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Eric Bleeker has been investing for more than 20 years. He began his career working at Microsoft before joining Motley Fool, one of the largest publishers of financial research. In his 15 years at Motley Fool Eric served as the General Manager for Fool.com and led coverage in the Technology & Telecom sector. In addition, he was a featured columnist and has hosted dozens of investing seminars attended by more than a million total investors. Eric has more than 1,000 financial bylines to his name and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Fox Business, and many other leading publications. He is currently focused on artificial intelligence investing and is a CFA Charterholoder.
