Our friends will know that Momentum Works is probably the only outfit in Southeast Asia which makes predictions at the beginning of every year, and reviews it as the year end approaches.
In early January 2021, we published our 10 predictions for Southeast Asia for the year. The first amongst the 10 was fairly specific: SEA Group market cap reaches $200b.
At that time (on 5 Jan), the market cap just crossed US$100 billion market, and many were already saying it was overvalued. We saw analysts saying that the reason why it was overvalued was because Shopee was making a loss.
However, what many did not notice was structural strengths of Shopee versus its ecommerce competitors in the region, as well as its ambition to go global, which is being carried out this year.
As of yesterday’s trading session, Sea Group’s market cap shot over US$200 billion – just as we had predicted at the beginning of the year:
Where will it go from there? Grab is heading for IPO by end of the year, further confirming the second half of the same prediction: “One more unicorn goes public“. GoTo will likely follow next year.
Will all three mega tech players becoming public, Southeast Asia’s tech will surely hop one notch up, with exited founders, key executives and investors ploughing their time and investments back into the ecosystem.
