After the results were announced, Sea (SE.US) soared by 15%! Holding up in the "e-commerce battle," has Sea finally turned the corner?

Sea (SE.US) released its fourth-quarter financial performance. The financial report shows that Q4 revenue increased by 4.8% year-on-year to $3.62 billion, exceeding market expectations by $70 million. Basic and diluted loss per share was $0.19, while the market expected a loss of $0.26. In the same period last year, the company reported earnings per share of $0.76 and $0.72, respectively. After the news was announced, Sea's stock price surged before Monday trading, reaching a 14.59% increase to $58.5. E-commerce and other service revenue amounted to $2.77 billion, a 24.2% increase year-on-year, mainly driven by the growth of e-commerce business GMV and CKH HOLDINGS credit business. In particular, Sea's most critical and highest-valued e-commerce sector revenue grew by 23% to $2.6 billion in the fourth quarter. Although the growth rate is lower than a few years ago, the results show that Shopee is still attracting buyers as online shopping becomes increasingly popular in the region with 650 million people. This result may alleviate some concerns about the slowing growth of Sea's online retail subsidiary Shopee. Shopee is trying to fend off competitors such as TikTok under ByteDance and Lazada under Alibaba (BABA.US). In December last year, after signing an agreement with GoTo Group's e-commerce arm Tokopedia, TikTok relaunched its popular shopping app in Indonesia, threatening Shopee's dominant position. Despite intensifying competition from competitors such as ByteDance, Sea's e-commerce revenue remains stable, resulting in a smaller profit decline than expected. The Southeast Asia's largest internet company reported an adjusted EBITDA of $126.7 million in the fourth quarter, a 74% decrease compared to the same period last year due to marketing expenses, but still higher than analysts' expectations of $88 million. In contrast, the company's profit performance in the past three quarters fell short of market expectations, leading to a double-digit drop in stock price on the day of the performance announcement.