Last week, Bloomberg reported a memo from Sea Group founder Forrest Li, in which he “sees path to US$1 trillion market cap with help of AI”.
The memo, written to mark the 8th anniversary of the Shopee parent’s IPO, quickly caught media attention – and for good reason. Only 11 companies in the world have ever crossed the trillion-dollar threshold, and none of them are from Southeast Asia.
Here are Forrest Li’s original words, in the memo marketing the 8th anniversary of the company’s IPO:
“I was recently asked whether Sea could one day be a trillion dollar company, and my response was that, increasingly, I see the path there – not just for us, but for any company that can truly harness and ride the huge wave of value creation AI will make. Achieving such an aspiration will not come easily for anyone, and it will require us to make the right calls, execute extremely well, remain very disciplined, and compete relentlessly. But a tech transition like this makes it possible.”
Currently, only 11 companies have a market cap of US$1 trillion and above: Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom, Saudi Aramco, TSMC, Tesla and Berkshire Hathaway.
Sea Group’s share price dropped more than 9% since the Bloomberg article – but the two events were probably not correlated. As of last weekend (24 Oct 2025), the company had a market cap of US$91.56 billion, which meant it needed to grow approximately 11X to achieve the trillion dollar target.
Will Sea Group get there?
Amazon, whose market cap is around US$2 trillion, took more than two decades – and multiple business reinventions – to get there.
We ran quick polls across Momentum Works channels to see how people felt about Sea’s trillion-dollar ambition.
On LinkedIn, optimism prevailed – nearly half (46%) said “Dream big, it might happen.”
In our private chat groups, the mood was very different: 65% said “unrealistic — market is small,” and not a single person voted for “dream big.”
Meanwhile, on WeChat (where almost 1,000 people voted and we could offer more nuanced options), sentiment was mixed: 24% said “unrealistic,” but 21% chose “It has to – I’m a shareholder.”
What do we think?
Well, facts and references first:
Shopee has been steadily raising its take rate – incl. commissions charged to sellers and brands – to improve profitability. However, based on parcel volume data, TikTok Shop still appears to be gaining share in Southeast Asia.
Shopee’s early moves in quick commerce show some promise and may eventually overlap with Grab’s territory. But investors shouldn’t expect Southeast Asia’s quick commerce to deliver meaningful profits in the next three to five years.
Its digital financial arm, Monee, continues to expand healthily. For reference, Alibaba’s Ant Group was valued at around US$315 billion before its IPO was halted in 2020 – showing the potential of such fintech adjacencies if managed well.
As for AI, its impact on ecommerce remains uncertain. Alibaba’s current experiments show promise in areas like product assortment and search optimization – solid incremental improvements, not yet the stuff of trillion-dollar dreams.
Market hubris could also send a company’s valuation to crazy levels. However, having experienced that in 2020-2021, I am sure the Sea Group management does not want another one.
In the end, the trillion-dollar target might not matter as much as the message behind it: that after years of grind and discipline, Sea still believes there’s immense upside ahead — if it stays focused and executes well.
As one follower on our WeChat channel quipped, when asked why Tencent (Current market cap: US$751B) never set a similar goal: “Tencent didn’t need to.”
You can also make reference to the following Momentum Works reports for more:
- Food Delivery Platforms in Southeast Asia 2025
- Ecommerce in Southeast Asia 2025
- TikTok Shop in the U.S. H1 2025
- Who is Shopee?
