On 11 August, Sea reported Q2 2026 revenue of US$7.8bn, up 48% year on year; adjusted EBITDA reached US$917mn, and net income rose 11% to US$458mn. It was a strong quarter across the group – the share price rose more than 14%.
This article was originally published on Momentum Works Intelligence (MWI), our Substack. We’re republishing it here in full.
Here are five things that stood out to us.
1. Shopee did not directly answer whether its ASEAN business is profitable
Three things are worth looking at together: Shopee’s consolidated adjusted EBITDA is about 0.67% of GMV today; management still speaks of 2-3% as being within reach over the medium term, and says some markets are already well above current levels; and yet, asked point-blank whether the regional business is profitable, it chose not to answer directly.
Put together, they show why the profitability question remains more complicated than the headline numbers suggest – and that the answer depends heavily on which market, which business line, and which costs and revenues are included.
The same question comes up when people debate whether TikTok Shop is profitable in Southeast Asia. We think that comparison deserves a separate discussion on Momentum Works Intelligence.
2. Monee now has five markets with loan books above US$1bn
The Philippines became the fifth, after Brazil became the fourth just last quarter. Only three markets are below this threshold – two of them are for structural reasons.
Group loan book reached US$11.1bn, up 62% year on year, with NPL steady at 1.0%. Revenue grew 59%; adjusted EBITDA grew 13%. Management attributed the gap to loan mix, promotional loans to new borrowers, and investment in Brazil. The gap is worth watching as Monee continues to scale.
At this size, it makes less and less sense to analyse Monee simply as a supporting business to Shopee.
3. Monee is launching a standalone app in Brazil, competing directly against Mercado Pago & Nubank
Sea is launching a standalone financial app in Brazil, similar to ShopeePay it has in a couple of SEA markets. In Brazil, Sea has also obtained authorisation for a Sociedade de Crédito, Financiamento e Investimento (SCFI). Nu Financeira, one of Nubank’s regulated entities, is the same type of financial institution. On the call, Sea explicitly compared the scope with Mercado Pago and other established players.
Sea does have some advantages going in: Shopee’s existing user base and transaction data in Brazil, plus several years of consumer lending experience across its other markets. It will also be competing with Mercado Pago, Nubank, and a highly developed Brazilian fintech ecosystem. We’ll be watching this one closely.
And has anyone followed Didi’s digital financial services in Brazil?
4. AI was everywhere (in operations). Migoo wasn’t.
Last quarter Sea had a distinct “on to AI” moment, agentic shopping assistant and all. This quarter, AI showed up almost entirely inside the businesses: transformer-based underwriting at Monee, income-document verification, ad matching, search, a digital assistant that reduces sellers’ need for a human account manager.
Analysts asked about it repeatedly; management answered by pointing at operations. AI has moved from being a topic to being part of the machinery. That is a noticeably different posture from ByteDance, which is treating AI as a company-level strategic bet, with dedicated investment in models, products and infrastructure.
Migoo, meanwhile – Sea’s AI companion product – was not mentioned at all.
5. Shopee is looking outside Shopee for traffic
Shopee’s Q2 results showed that more than 25% of physical-goods orders in Southeast Asia now come from livestream and short video. Separately, Sea said it is deepening its work with Meta and YouTube: affiliate orders via Facebook creators grew more than 85% quarter on quarter, and the Instagram integration is now live across all eight core markets.
Sea did not disclose how large these external channels are in absolute terms. The more important point may be the pattern: Shopee is continuing to add sources of traffic beyond its own app – Meta, YouTube, affiliates and others – and finding ways to turn that traffic into transactions on Shopee. TikTok starts with attention and has been building commerce around it. Shopee starts with commerce and keeps adding sources of attention.
One final observation
“Momentum“ was mentioned four times during the call, three of which were actively by the management.
We are pleased.
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