Singaporean billionaire Forrest Li’s sea is shutting down its Indian e-commerce unit due to global market uncertainties

Sea Ltd., controlled by Singaporean billionaire Forrest Li, is closing its Shopee India unit as the loss-making tech giant consolidates its e-commerce business after aggressive global expansion in recent years.

“Given the uncertainties in the global market, we have decided to close our Shopee India initiative at an early stage,” Sea said in a statement on Monday. “During this transition period, we will focus on supporting our local seller and buyer communities and our local team to make the process as smooth as possible.”

Sea, which is part-owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, will start pulling out of India today, just six months after the e-commerce service launched in the world’s second most populous country in October. . The closure follows Shopee’s departure from France earlier this month as the e-commerce company focuses on growing markets in Brazil, the Southeast and Taiwan.

The company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in 2017 and quickly became Southeast Asia’s most valuable technology company, with the stock hitting an all-time high of $366.99 per share in October 2021. , as the pandemic has boosted demand for its online games, e-commerce. and digital payment companies.

Since then, however, shares of Sea have fallen more than 60% due to a confluence of factors: Tencent cut its stake in the company’s flagship mobile game. Free fire was banned in India and its net loss widened. While the group’s revenue more than doubled to around $10 billion in 2021, its net loss widened to $2 billion from $1.6 billion.

The uncertainties have dragged down the fortunes of the company’s three billionaire co-founders, with the real-time net worth of the Sea Li chairman, 44, falling to $6.5 billion this week from $15.9 billion in August when Singapore’s 50 richest list has been released. Li co-founded Sea with Gang Ye and David Chen in 2009, the year the trio launched online gaming platform Garena. Originally from mainland China, the partners are now naturalized Singaporean citizens.