Sea Limited’s market cap can hit $1T with AI: Singapore's 6th richest billionaire Forrest Li

"It will require us to make the right calls, execute extremely well, remain very disciplined and compete relentlessly," Li said in a memo to staff on Monday, as cited by Bloomberg.

In the memo, issued on the eighth anniversary of Sea’s stock-market debut, the billionaire founder compared the rise of artificial intelligence to the personal computer and smartphone revolutions that broadened consumer access to products and services once reserved for the wealthy.

He noted that while harnessing AI’s potential will likely be challenging, "a tech transition like this makes it possible" for the firm to reach the trillion-dollar mark.

Sea has been steadily integrating AI into its core operations, from customer service to gaming, as part of its broader effort to boost efficiency and innovation.

In earlier earnings calls, Li attributed the company’s improved profitability in e-commerce to the use of such tools and its expanding logistics network, as reported by Fortune.

The company posted revenue of $5.3 billion for the quarter ending June 2025, up nearly 40% from a year earlier, and a net income of $414.2 million, a fivefold jump year-on-year.

Each of Sea’s three major divisions, namely e-commerce arm Shopee, gaming firm Garena, and fintech platform Monee, recorded double-digit revenue growth during the period.

Li said in August that Sea has "reached a stage where we can pursue growth opportunities while improving profitability."

Among those opportunities is Brazil, where Shopee made its debut in 2019 and has since become one of the country’s leading e-commerce platforms. Both Li and Sea’s Chief Financial Officer Tony Hou voiced optimism about the firm’s long-term prospects there during a recent call with analysts.

But the firm might face stiff competition on its home turf of Southeast Asia, according to The Economist.

A major rival comes in the form of social commerce, which now accounts for around one-fifth of all online retail activity in the region. TikTok dominates this space, attracting users who often discover sales pitches while scrolling through short videos.

TikTok Shop’s gross merchandise value more than doubled year-on-year across the five largest Southeast Asian economies outside Singapore in the first half of 2025, according to consultancy Momentum Works. Its top market is Indonesia, where social media use is especially popular.

In the recent memo, Li did not reveal specifics about Sea’s next steps in AI development or how it plans to tackle rising competition.

Nonetheless, he reiterated that all three of the company’s business segments are now profitable.

"While the external environment will always be unpredictable, I feel much more settled today about our future," he said.

"After eight years as a public company, we better understand how the capital market behaves and how to navigate it. So, even if the seas turn choppy again, we are in much greater control of our own decisions and our own destiny."

Li, who co-founded Sea in 2009 with two others, was named Singapore's sixth richest billionaire in August by Forbes, which estimated his net worth at $11.2 billion at the time.