MariBank, Singapore tech giant Sea Group’s digital bank, has launched in Singapore to select members of the public as it rolls out its services progressively.
Rafael Henrique | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Net income in 2023 was $162.7 million, as compared to a net loss of $1.7 billion in 2022. There was a net loss of $111.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, as compared to net income of $422.8 million in the same period a year ago.
“In 2023, we achieved profitability, strengthened our market leadership for our e-commerce business, grew our digital financial services business, and stabilized the performance of our digital entertainment business,” said Forrest Li, chairman and CEO of Sea, on Monday. Before that, Sea was largely unprofitable, amassing billions of dollars in losses since its inception in 2009.
Sea operates in Southeast Asian markets and has businesses in e-commerce (Shopee), financial services (SeaMoney) and gaming (Garena).
“We have emerged with a much stronger balance sheet with our cash position increasing to 8.5 billion dollars as of the end of 2023, demonstrating the discipline and prudence we have applied in our investments over the past year,” said Li.
Sea’s New York-listed shares closed 5.58% higher on Monday. Li said the firm expects 2024 to be a profitable year as well.
Sea’s e-commerce arm Shopee made a “meaningful gain in market share” in 2023 despite “intensified competition in Southeast Asia,” the firm said on Monday. Sea also said Shopee’s market share in the region has “solidified” and the firm intends to “maintain our market share in 2024.”
Shopee faces stiff competition from players like Alibaba-owned Lazada and Indonesia’s Tokopedia in the region. Tokopedia merged with TikTok Shop in Indonesia to form an enlarged Tokopedia entity, in which TikTok will take a controlling stake of 75.01%.
In August, Sea said it would focus on growth over profits — a reversal from recent cost-cutting measures in the face of economic uncertainty. Analysts said the pivot was a move to defend market share.
SeaMoney reported its first year of profit in 2023. The firm also expects its flagship game Free Fire “to grow double-digits year-on-year for both user base and bookings in 2024.”
“We are pleased to see positive trends in both growth and profitability for all three of our businesses. Looking ahead, we will continue to invest for the future with discipline and focus,” Sea said in a press statement on Monday.
“Guidance was quite positive and surprising,” said Sachin Mittal of DBS Bank. The bank upgraded Sea from “hold” to “buy” with a target price of $75 after the earnings report.
“It has got to do with TikTok being not so aggressive in Indonesia. They achieved what they wanted [with] Tokopedia and is now dealing with regulatory compliance,” Mittal told CNBC on Tuesday.
CGS-CIMB Securities analyst Khang Chuen Ong on Tuesday upgraded Sea to “add” from “hold” with a price target increase to $74 per share from $46, representing 37% upside.
Wedbush on Monday raised their target price for Sea to $72 from $45, maintaining an “outperform” rating.
“We are increasingly constructive on shares given the growth and margin trajectory implied by management’s outlook, and we believe Sea is in the early stages of a successful turnaround as competitive pressures ease and investments in live streaming, user acquisition, and fulfillment begin to bear fruit,” said Wedbush analysts.
The Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, California, US, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Intel Corp. is scheduled to release earnings figures on April 24.
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Intel reported first-quarter results on Thursday that beat analysts’ estimates, while issuing disappointing guidance and announcing plans to slash operational and capital expenses in the coming year, the first under CEO Lip-Bu Tan. The stock fell 7% in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did, versus LSEG consensus estimates:
EPS: 13 cents, adjusted vs. 1 cent estimated
Revenue: $12.67 billion vs. $12.3 billion estimated
Intel said it expects revenue for the current quarter of $11.8 billion dollars at the midpoint of the range, lower than the average analyst estimate of $12.82 billion. The company said earnings will be breakeven, while analysts were looking for profit of 6 cents per share.
Intel said its second-quarter guidance reflected elevated uncertainty driven by the macro environment.
For the first quarter, Intel reported a net loss of $800 million, or 19 cents per share, due to higher costs of sales and some writedowns. That compares with net income of $2.7 billion, or 63 cents per share, last year.
It’s the chipmaker’s first earnings report since Tan over as CEO in March, after Pat Gelsinger stepped down in December under pressure from board members and investors. Gelsinger’s tenure was highlighted by the company’s inability to effectively compete in artificial intelligence and its efforts to move into semiconductor manufacturing for other companies, including competitors.
“The first quarter was a step in the right direction, but there are no quick fixes as we work to get back on a path to gaining market share and driving sustainable growth,” Tan said in a statement.
Intel said on Thursday that it was planning to cut operational and capital expenses, removing management layers, in order to become more efficient. The company said it expected $17 billion in operational expenses this year, down from a previous target of $17.5 billion, and that it would target $18 billion in capital expenses in 2025, down from a previous target of $20 billion.
Intel said it hasn’t included restructuring charges in its guidance. Finance chief David Zinsnertold CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos that the reduction in operating expenses would include job cuts, especially for managers, but that Intel has not yet finalized a number of cuts.
“There is no way around the fact that these critical changes will reduce the size of our workforce,” Tan said in a memo to employees that was published by Intel on its website. He said that the cuts would begin this quarter.
Intel’s investors hope Tan can turn around a company that’s been losing market share in its core processor business, and doesn’t have a competitive AI chip to Nvidia, which dominates the fast-growing sector.
Tan has already started to shape his team, last week naming networking chief Sachin Katti to be the company’s chief technology officer and head of AI, leading Intel’s overall AI strategy and product release plans. Tan said on Thursday in a memo that Intel employees would have to work four days per week in the office by September.
Intel’s data center group reported $4.1 billion in sales, which was up 8% year-over-year. Intel said it had merged its networking and edge computing group, previously led by Katti, into its data center organization.
The company’s other big business, chips for PCs, is reported under the Client Computing Group, and it fell 8% on an annual basis to $7.6 billion in sales.
Intel’s burgeoning foundry business reported $4.7 billion in revenue, although most of those sales come from Intel’s other divisions to manufacture its chips.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg presents Orion AR Glasses as he makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta has laid off employees in its Reality Labs division that is tasked with developing virtual reality, augmented reality and related wearable devices.
The cuts affected an unspecified number of employees working in the division’s Oculus Studios unit, which develops VR and AR games and content for Meta’s Quest VR headsets, a company spokesperson told CNBC.
“Some teams within Oculus Studios are undergoing shifts in structure and roles that have impacted team size,” the spokesperson said. “These changes are meant to help Studios work more efficiently on future mixed reality experiences for our growing audience, while still delivering great content for people today.”
Employees working on the Supernatural VR workout app were impacted, the spokesperson said.
“We’re deeply saddened to share that these changes have resulted in the loss of some of our incredibly talented team members,” the company said in a statement posted to the Supernatural official Facebook group. “Their contributions have been instrumental in shaping our journey and yours, and their absence will be deeply felt.”
Meta’s Reality Labs division logged an operating loss of $4.97 billion while scoring $1.1 billion in sales during the fourth quarter, the company said in January.
The social media company reports earnings on Wednesday.
The Verge reported the layoffs earlier on Thursday.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, is set to report first-quarter earnings after the bell Thursday.
Here’s what analysts are expecting.
Revenue: $89.12 billion, according to LSEG
Earnings per share: $2.01, according to LSEG
YouTube advertising revenue: $8.97 billion, according to StreetAccount
Google Cloud revenue: $12.27 billion, according to StreetAccount
Traffic acquisition costs (TAC): $13.66 billion, according to StreetAccount
Google finds itself at the center of an artificial intelligence arms race where its position may be threatened pending mounting regulation and competition from generative AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic. The company is also among those bracing for the potential impact from President Donald Trump‘s tariffs, which could result in a pullback in advertiser spending due to tighter budgets.
Alphabet shares have dropped more than 17% in 2025 so far.
Wall Street is expecting Alphabet to report 10% year-over-year revenue growth for the first quarter, which included a slew of AI announcements, its largest-ever acquisition, cost cuts and regulatory hurdles.
In March, Google released Gemini 2.5, its “most capable” artificial intelligence model suite yet, and Gemma 3, the company’s latest open model. The timing of Gemini 2.5 and Gemma 3 comes after DeepSeek in January released its R1 model, which caused a rift in Silicon Valley after the Chinese startup claimed its AI model was trained at a fraction of the cost of other leading models.
Google AI chief Demis Hassabis told employees at an all-hands meeting in February that he was not worried about DeepSeek and that Google has superior AI technology.
“We’re very calm and confident in our strategy, and we have all the ingredients to maintain our leadership into this year,” Hassabis said, calming concerns from investors and employees alike. He added, however, he thinks the Chinese company is still “something to be taken seriously.”
Google this quarter also announced new personalization features for Gemini, allowing the chatbot to reference users’ search histories, and users can also connect Gemini to other Google apps, including Calendar, Notes, Tasks and Photos.
During the quarter, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced it would be partnering with Google’s Gemini products, giving the company high praise.
“No company is better at every single layer of computing than Google and Google Cloud,” Huang said.
Alphabet also had a number of announcements in autonomous driving.
In March, Waymo began offering robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, through the Uber app and opened up a waitlist in Atlanta. Those markets are just two of several more expected expansions in the U.S. this year.
Alphabet also made its largest acquisition ever in March when it agreed to buy Wiz for $32 billion in cash, almost $10 billion more than it offered for the startup in 2024, and said it expects the deal to close next year, subject to regulatory approvals. With the acquisition, Google will seek to bolster its cloud division’s security offerings. Google is behind Amazon and Microsoft in cloud market share, which may help the company’s argument to obtain regulatory approval.
Google this quarter also faced a slew of regulatory and legal challenges.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that Google held illegal monopolies in online advertising markets due to its position between ad buyers and sellers. The ruling represents a second major antitrust blow for Google. Last August, a judge determined the company has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search.
In April, the company reached a settlement with its employee union, where it agreed to reverse a policy forbidding employees from discussing antitrust litigation. The settlement, which marked a major victory for Google staffers, came ahead of Google’s remedy trial, which will determine the consequences of the search monopoly ruling over the next few weeks.
Education tech company Chegg in February filed a lawsuit against Google. Chegg claimed that Google’s “AI summaries” feature in search have hurt the online education company’s traffic and revenue. Similarly, Reddit in February claimed that Google’s search algorithm caused some “volatility” with user growth in the fourth quarter, but the company’s search-related traffic has since recovered, CEO Steve Huffman said.