SINGAPORE: E-commerce and gaming firm Sea Ltd said on Monday it is withdrawing from India’s retail market just months after starting operations there, the second pullback this month in an overseas expansion drive, as the loss-making firm faces a weak growth outlook.
The withdrawal, effective beginning March 29, comes weeks after its e-commerce arm Shopee said it was pulling out of France and after India banned Sea’s popular gaming app “Free Fire”.
After the ban, the market value of New York-listed Sea dropped by $16 billion in a single day, leading some investors to cut holdings in the Singapore-headquartered company.
Shopee said in a statement its withdrawal came “in view of global market uncertainties” and that the company would make “the process as smooth as possible”.
Sea earlier this month said revenue growth of its e-commerce business was expected to halve to around 76% this year from a blistering 157% in 2021, amid fewer online purchases and engagements as more countries emerge from the pandemic.
“Due to a drastic shift in the market sentiment towards growth stocks, all these e-commerce companies are under real pressure to at least break even as soon as possible,” said LightStream Research equity analyst Oshadhi Kumarasiri, who publishes on the Smartkarma platform.
Sea’s US-listed shares fell 3.2% to $112.35 in afternoon trading.
The company’s shares had already dropped 11% in January after Chinese tech giant Tencent announced it was selling 14.5 million shares in the group.
There is no clear evidence that the decision to withdraw from India is based on government pressure or other operational decisions, Citi analyst Alicia Yap said.
Reuters was the first to report Sea’s decision on its Indian operations.
Shopee’s India business began in October 2021 as part of an aggressive international push that saw it expand into Europe. Sea’s market cap at the time was as much as $200 billion. It has since dropped to $64.76 billion in March 2022.
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