“東南亞版騰訊”的崛起之路
Simon Willis
2021-07-04
2017年10月20日，Sea Limited在紐約市上市，行人經過紐約證券交易所外帶有該公司標識的招牌。圖片來源：Michael Nagle—Bloomberg/Getty Images
2020年2月，全球最受歡迎的手機視頻游戲《Free Fire》的開發商推出了新功能。《Free Fire》是一款非常刺激的生存游戲，玩家的角色在虛擬世界中四處奔突，用Vector Akimbo（一款沖鋒槍）和Katana（武士刀）之類的復雜武器互相廝殺。而新加入的訓練場功能則提供了不同的玩法。在這里玩家可以遠離刺激的競爭，專心練習技能，或者只是跟朋友們一起玩。能夠騎摩天輪或者玩滑板，可以放焰火，也能夠去私人電影院。訓練場來得正是時候，在現實世界因為新冠疫情而被封鎖之際，虛擬世界趁機開放，為玩家提供虛擬角色社交的機會。玩家在游戲中花費的時間越多，花錢的可能性就越大，購買服裝、槍支和寵物打扮自己的角色都要花錢。2020年，《Free Fire》游戲為開發商Sea Limited創造了32億美元游戲收入。
Sea的總部位于新加坡，2017年在紐約證券交易所（New York Stock Exchange）上市，除游戲外還經營其他業務，包括Shopee[類似亞馬遜（Amazon）的電商網站，銷售從電子產品和家用電器到食品和美容等多種商品]和SeaMoney（數字金融服務公司）。Sea投資組合相當多元，為搶先打造稱霸東南亞的超級應用程序，與兩家網約車、食品配送和金融科技巨頭Grab和GoTo展開了激烈競爭。各家公司都想成為本地最受歡迎的一站式數字商店，提供各種服務。Sea的游戲部門叫Garena，看起來可能像比賽中的配角。但在疫情期間，該部門的業績亮眼，2020年創造利潤超過20億美元，也為Sea提供了戰勝競爭對手的財力。
疫情時代Sea的優勢
分析一下Sea的游戲是如何支撐其電商業務的。由于疫情期間很多白領在家登錄，Shopee業務勢頭良好。但Sea向平臺大舉投資希望搶占市場份額，提供免費送貨和現金返利等優惠措施吸引用戶，還降低銷售傭金吸引新的零售商。Shopee虧損了13億美元，不過2020年訂單同比增長130%達到28億筆，收入增長160%達到22億美元。Shopee首次戰勝當地主要競爭對手，也是中國阿里巴巴旗下的Lazada，成為東南亞最受歡迎的電商網站。
數字支付也是同樣模式。2019年，與Grab合作的電子錢包公司Ovo，還有GoTo的金融科技平臺GoPay在東南亞最大的市場印尼都是領先平臺。然而，益普索(Ipsos)的一項研究顯示，12個月后 Sea旗下ShopeePay的用戶量已經超過了這兩家公司。Shopee在印尼用戶數量本就龐大，帶動了ShopePay用戶增長，畢竟平臺內錢包是電商網站最靈活的支付方式，況且Sea為ShopeePay客戶提供購物現金返還。用戶也可以在谷歌（Google）Play應用市場，以及Wendy's和Krispy Kreme等大型連鎖店使用ShopeePay。
隨著Shopee加入，Sea也順利打進食品配送領域，之前該領域一直受到忽視。2020年，Sea在越南的食品配送服務公司超過了Grab。在雅加達的街頭，ShopeeFood身著橙色衣服的車手趕上了Grab和GoTo的綠色車隊，原因是公司在當地提供60%的折扣。雖然Shopee的食品配送業務尚處于起步階段，母公司的規模和財富提供了巨大優勢。今年早些時候，Sea的首席企業官王彥君（音譯）在一次財報電話會議上告訴投資者：“我們自然就變成市場上的領導者。”
投資者顯然已經注意到了這一點。疫情之前，Sea股價一直徘徊在45美元左右，如今股價已經超過280美元，漲幅超過了同期的亞馬遜和騰訊，Sea也由此成為東南亞市值最高的公司，目前市值約為1470億美元。
2017年10月20日，Sea的董事長、首席執行官及聯合創始人李小東在紐約證券交易所為公司IPO敲鐘。圖片來源：Michael Nagle—Bloomberg/Getty Images
2020年，Grab和GoTo利潤微薄，由于核心網約車服務陷入低迷，不得不一輪又一輪向私人投資者籌集資金。Sea集團也尚未實現盈利，2020年凈虧損約為16億美元。但Garena部門的利潤為公司整體超常增長提供了資金，目前投資者似乎比較滿意該策略。
去年5月，Sea出售可轉換債券籌集了超過10億美元，12月通過股票二次發行籌集了30億美元。到2021年第一季度末，幾次募資增加了57億美元的現金儲備。
多數分析師認為，Sea超常增長加速推動了Grab與SPAC（特殊目的收購公司）合并上市進程（今年早些時候兩家公司宣布了該決定）。GoTo的情況也一樣，2021年5月網約車公司Gojek和印尼電商公司Tokopedia合并。合并后的公司高管表示，計劃最早今年在雅加達和納斯達克（Nasdaq）聯合上市。
Grab的SPAC合并預計將于年底結束，股權價值估計為396億美元，而2019年10月公司最新一輪融資后公布的估值為140億美元。GoTo的投資者認為兩家公司合并后的總估值為180億美元。總部位于雅加達的公司高管表示，公司上市后爭取將估值提升到350億至400億美元。現在的問題是Grab和GoTo能否攔住Sea的浪潮。
Sea的游戲淵源
Sea的創始人及首席執行官是43歲的李小東，2006年到新加坡發展。根據彭博社（Bloomberg）的資料，他出生在中國天津，就讀于上海交通大學，當時他無法理解當地方言，所以晚上泡在網吧玩電子游戲。畢業后，他在摩托羅拉系統公司（Motorola Solutions）和康寧（Corning）的中國分部工作，之后前往美國斯坦福大學（Stanford University）攻讀MBA。他的同學中有新加坡人馬麗倩（音譯），后來成了他的妻子。2005年的畢業典禮上，李小東聽到了蘋果（Apple）的聯合創始人史蒂夫·喬布斯著名的畢業典禮致辭，致辭中喬布斯告誡學生們“求知若饑，虛心若愚”。李小東曾經表示，喬布斯的演講鼓勵他“跳出企業界勇敢創業”。
李小東第一次創業嘗試以失敗告終。2006年，他和馬麗倩在新加坡定居不久便創立了GG Game，主要開發單人游戲，而當時正是多人游戲蓬勃發展之際。最終公司倒閉。2009年，李小東走上了另一條路。
李小東在逐漸了解東南亞的游戲市場時，發現了市場上的問題。美國和中國的游戲公司都沒有在東南亞投資搭建服務器基礎設施，結果游戲往往速度慢，玩起來很麻煩。更重要的是，很多游戲為高性能的智能手機、游戲機和個人電腦設計，在發達國家智能手機很普遍，印尼和菲律賓等國卻買不起，因為此類國家的游戲玩家都使用廉價設備，網速也很慢。
他的解決方案是成立Garena，當時利用Skype已故聯合創始人托伊沃·安努斯的種子資金，在新加坡一家商店里創立了這家公司。隨后，Garena推出了《英雄聯盟》（League of Legends）和《FIFA足球世界》（FIFA）等國際熱門游戲的本地版，其技術基礎設施讓雅加達的中檔手機能夠像洛杉磯的高端設備一樣快速響應。李小東的策略為Garena贏得了數千萬用戶，也獲得了騰訊等科技巨頭的關注，騰訊成了早期投資者。2017年，李小東發布了《Free Fire》，Garena旗下的游戲玩家都變成《Free Fire》現成的用戶。這款游戲并非原創，《堡壘之夜》（Fortnite）和《絕地求生》（PUBG）等已經普及了逃生游戲類型。李小東只是為業界忽視的新興國家玩家提供服務。
Sea拒絕李小東和公司其他高管接受采訪。
2015年，李小東開始關注電商領域并發現了類似機會。東南亞智能手機市場增長迅速，2013年18至35歲的印尼人當中17%擁有智能手機。統計公司皮尤（Pew）稱，到2018年比例已經上升至66%。然而，現有電商網站都為電腦設計，而東南亞消費者很少擁有電腦。
李小東將Shopee開發成優先移動端的平臺，并將游戲玩家吸引到平臺上以降低早期獲客成本。舉例來說，Shopee是購買Garena Shells最便宜的地方，Garena Shells是玩家在Garena的游戲里使用的數字貨幣。李小東還在兩個平臺上整合了相同的數字支付系統，盡可能減少購買不流暢的感覺，確保用戶可以購買想要的設備和商品。
現在Shopee向東南亞以外的新市場擴張時也在重復這一招。2019年，Sea在巴西推出Shopee應用程序，《Free Fire》一直是巴西最受歡迎的手機游戲。登錄Shopee的玩家能夠解鎖密碼以獲得游戲物品。Shopee在巴西業務規模仍然較小，但根據分析公司SimilarWeb的數據，目前Shopee已經成為巴西下載量最大的購物應用程序。
Garena和Shopee之間互通不僅限于功能。新加坡的歐洲工商管理學院（INSEAD）副教授杰森·戴維斯認為，Garena讓Shopee充滿了“游戲DNA”。
“游戲公司發展非常迅速，有很多創新，客戶對新產品的要求也非常高。”他說，“Garena的創新方式在電商行業同樣適用。”
最重要的是，Sea已經掌握了注意力經濟，通過精心策劃的創新吸引了越來越多眼球。例如，《Free Fire》的開發者經常根據本土名人推出新角色，在各個國家專門調整。印尼的玩家可以扮演印尼武術家兼演員喬·塔斯利姆。印度的玩家能夠扮演寶萊塢演員赫里尼克·羅斯漢。在巴西和埃及等新興市場，Garena聘請巨星DJ制作只有游戲里才可以播放的獨家歌曲。
Shopee還特別推出了本地意見領袖主持的現場測試。獎品是能夠用于網站消費的Shopee Coins。平臺還根據各國消費者口味調整商品。比如，印尼版Shopee就有叫Shopee Pilih Lokal的分區，意思是“Shopee選擇本地”，專門出售蠟染和穆斯林時裝等。Shopee并不是東南亞唯一采用相關策略的電商企業：去年Lazada推出了LazLive，主要推動直播售賣。不過新加坡風險投資公司Golden Gate Ventures的合伙人賈斯汀·霍爾表示，Shopee嘗試的市場更多，策略也更成熟。他指出，Shopee成功主要因為“非常了解當地人的喜好和購物習慣”。盡管剛開始李小東用折扣吸引顧客，但之后也可以保持用戶的活躍度。
Sea能保持熱門嗎？
經歷了2020年大發展之后，Sea的發展之路上仍然存在三個潛在障礙。首先是游戲業務的不確定性。到目前為止，Sea主要依賴Garena的利潤。但即便最流行的游戲也有生命周期。公司預計《Free Fire》至少還能夠增長兩年。問題是，之后會怎樣？
為了開發出下一款像《Free Fire》一樣的爆款，去年Sea向開發熱門游戲《無畏》（Dauntless）的加拿大公司鳳凰實驗室（Phoenix Labs）支付了一筆未披露金額的資金。在《無畏》游戲中，玩家可以獵殺追捕全球大災難幸存者的怪物。后續可能出現類似的投資。去年，Sea成立了名叫Sea Capital的投資部門，專門收購有盈利項目的小公司。雖然Sea很難復制《Free Fire》，但Garena資金相當充沛，不管是本地版權還是國際大作都能夠輕易買下，確保后續盈利。
第二個問題關于忠誠度。如果Shopee為追求利潤降低激勵，用戶還可以不離不棄嗎？咨詢公司RedSeer最新調研顯示，確實有可能。RedSeer的東南亞主管羅桑·拉吉稱，2019年參與調研的電商消費者最關注折扣。但到2020年秋，消費者的偏好發生了變化。“人們對價格關注降低，更在意安全和方便。”拉吉說。
這一趨勢表明，只要Sea能夠讓用戶滿意順暢的物流體驗，就有空間降低優惠。Sea在中國臺灣地區市場已經嘗試，盡管削減了送貨補貼，提高了每筆訂單向零售商收取的傭金，Shopee在臺灣地區市場仍然明顯領跑。
第三個也是最大的問題是SeaMoney，也就是Sea旗下的金融服務部門能否贏得競爭。Sea在金融科技領域與Grab和GoTo的競爭最為激烈，主要因為潛在回報非常巨大。東南亞有近3億人沒有銀行服務。在印尼和菲律賓，該比例高達70%。近幾個月來，Sea等科技公司掀起了一股熱潮，搶著收購印尼的銀行，希望轉為數字公司。
從預訂出租車到預約按摩，東南亞仍然有數百萬人使用Grab和 GoTo提供的各種服務，不過到目前為止還沒有涉及金融領域。“人們認為Grab和GoTo不是金融服務公司。”戴維斯說，多年來他一直在研究東南亞的超級應用程序。“我還沒有發現哪家公司品牌可以占主導地位。SeaMoney有機會。”
現金充沛將是決定性因素，這方面Sea贏得了早期領先優勢。“公司的業績鋪好了跑道，接下來才有機會沖刺搶先。”戴維斯說道。（財富中文網）
譯者：馮豐
審校：夏林
2020年2月，全球最受歡迎的手機視頻游戲《Free Fire》的開發商推出了新功能。《Free Fire》是一款非常刺激的生存游戲，玩家的角色在虛擬世界中四處奔突，用Vector Akimbo（一款沖鋒槍）和Katana（武士刀）之類的復雜武器互相廝殺。而新加入的訓練場功能則提供了不同的玩法。在這里玩家可以遠離刺激的競爭，專心練習技能，或者只是跟朋友們一起玩。能夠騎摩天輪或者玩滑板，可以放焰火，也能夠去私人電影院。訓練場來得正是時候，在現實世界因為新冠疫情而被封鎖之際，虛擬世界趁機開放，為玩家提供虛擬角色社交的機會。玩家在游戲中花費的時間越多，花錢的可能性就越大，購買服裝、槍支和寵物打扮自己的角色都要花錢。2020年，《Free Fire》游戲為開發商Sea Limited創造了32億美元游戲收入。
Sea的總部位于新加坡，2017年在紐約證券交易所（New York Stock Exchange）上市，除游戲外還經營其他業務，包括Shopee[類似亞馬遜（Amazon）的電商網站，銷售從電子產品和家用電器到食品和美容等多種商品]和SeaMoney（數字金融服務公司）。Sea投資組合相當多元，為搶先打造稱霸東南亞的超級應用程序，與兩家網約車、食品配送和金融科技巨頭Grab和GoTo展開了激烈競爭。各家公司都想成為本地最受歡迎的一站式數字商店，提供各種服務。Sea的游戲部門叫Garena，看起來可能像比賽中的配角。但在疫情期間，該部門的業績亮眼，2020年創造利潤超過20億美元，也為Sea提供了戰勝競爭對手的財力。
疫情時代Sea的優勢
分析一下Sea的游戲是如何支撐其電商業務的。由于疫情期間很多白領在家登錄，Shopee業務勢頭良好。但Sea向平臺大舉投資希望搶占市場份額，提供免費送貨和現金返利等優惠措施吸引用戶，還降低銷售傭金吸引新的零售商。Shopee虧損了13億美元，不過2020年訂單同比增長130%達到28億筆，收入增長160%達到22億美元。Shopee首次戰勝當地主要競爭對手，也是中國阿里巴巴旗下的Lazada，成為東南亞最受歡迎的電商網站。
數字支付也是同樣模式。2019年，與Grab合作的電子錢包公司Ovo，還有GoTo的金融科技平臺GoPay在東南亞最大的市場印尼都是領先平臺。然而，益普索(Ipsos)的一項研究顯示，12個月后 Sea旗下ShopeePay的用戶量已經超過了這兩家公司。Shopee在印尼用戶數量本就龐大，帶動了ShopePay用戶增長，畢竟平臺內錢包是電商網站最靈活的支付方式，況且Sea為ShopeePay客戶提供購物現金返還。用戶也可以在谷歌（Google）Play應用市場，以及Wendy's和Krispy Kreme等大型連鎖店使用ShopeePay。
隨著Shopee加入，Sea也順利打進食品配送領域，之前該領域一直受到忽視。2020年，Sea在越南的食品配送服務公司超過了Grab。在雅加達的街頭，ShopeeFood身著橙色衣服的車手趕上了Grab和GoTo的綠色車隊，原因是公司在當地提供60%的折扣。雖然Shopee的食品配送業務尚處于起步階段，母公司的規模和財富提供了巨大優勢。今年早些時候，Sea的首席企業官王彥君（音譯）在一次財報電話會議上告訴投資者：“我們自然就變成市場上的領導者。”
投資者顯然已經注意到了這一點。疫情之前，Sea股價一直徘徊在45美元左右，如今股價已經超過280美元，漲幅超過了同期的亞馬遜和騰訊，Sea也由此成為東南亞市值最高的公司，目前市值約為1470億美元。
2020年，Grab和GoTo利潤微薄，由于核心網約車服務陷入低迷，不得不一輪又一輪向私人投資者籌集資金。Sea集團也尚未實現盈利，2020年凈虧損約為16億美元。但Garena部門的利潤為公司整體超常增長提供了資金，目前投資者似乎比較滿意該策略。
去年5月，Sea出售可轉換債券籌集了超過10億美元，12月通過股票二次發行籌集了30億美元。到2021年第一季度末，幾次募資增加了57億美元的現金儲備。
多數分析師認為，Sea超常增長加速推動了Grab與SPAC（特殊目的收購公司）合并上市進程（今年早些時候兩家公司宣布了該決定）。GoTo的情況也一樣，2021年5月網約車公司Gojek和印尼電商公司Tokopedia合并。合并后的公司高管表示，計劃最早今年在雅加達和納斯達克（Nasdaq）聯合上市。
Grab的SPAC合并預計將于年底結束，股權價值估計為396億美元，而2019年10月公司最新一輪融資后公布的估值為140億美元。GoTo的投資者認為兩家公司合并后的總估值為180億美元。總部位于雅加達的公司高管表示，公司上市后爭取將估值提升到350億至400億美元。現在的問題是Grab和GoTo能否攔住Sea的浪潮。
Sea的游戲淵源
Sea的創始人及首席執行官是43歲的李小東，2006年到新加坡發展。根據彭博社（Bloomberg）的資料，他出生在中國天津，就讀于上海交通大學，當時他無法理解當地方言，所以晚上泡在網吧玩電子游戲。畢業后，他在摩托羅拉系統公司（Motorola Solutions）和康寧（Corning）的中國分部工作，之后前往美國斯坦福大學（Stanford University）攻讀MBA。他的同學中有新加坡人馬麗倩（音譯），后來成了他的妻子。2005年的畢業典禮上，李小東聽到了蘋果（Apple）的聯合創始人史蒂夫·喬布斯著名的畢業典禮致辭，致辭中喬布斯告誡學生們“求知若饑，虛心若愚”。李小東曾經表示，喬布斯的演講鼓勵他“跳出企業界勇敢創業”。
李小東第一次創業嘗試以失敗告終。2006年，他和馬麗倩在新加坡定居不久便創立了GG Game，主要開發單人游戲，而當時正是多人游戲蓬勃發展之際。最終公司倒閉。2009年，李小東走上了另一條路。
李小東在逐漸了解東南亞的游戲市場時，發現了市場上的問題。美國和中國的游戲公司都沒有在東南亞投資搭建服務器基礎設施，結果游戲往往速度慢，玩起來很麻煩。更重要的是，很多游戲為高性能的智能手機、游戲機和個人電腦設計，在發達國家智能手機很普遍，印尼和菲律賓等國卻買不起，因為此類國家的游戲玩家都使用廉價設備，網速也很慢。
他的解決方案是成立Garena，當時利用Skype已故聯合創始人托伊沃·安努斯的種子資金，在新加坡一家商店里創立了這家公司。隨后，Garena推出了《英雄聯盟》（League of Legends）和《FIFA足球世界》（FIFA）等國際熱門游戲的本地版，其技術基礎設施讓雅加達的中檔手機能夠像洛杉磯的高端設備一樣快速響應。李小東的策略為Garena贏得了數千萬用戶，也獲得了騰訊等科技巨頭的關注，騰訊成了早期投資者。2017年，李小東發布了《Free Fire》，Garena旗下的游戲玩家都變成《Free Fire》現成的用戶。這款游戲并非原創，《堡壘之夜》（Fortnite）和《絕地求生》（PUBG）等已經普及了逃生游戲類型。李小東只是為業界忽視的新興國家玩家提供服務。
Sea拒絕李小東和公司其他高管接受采訪。
2015年，李小東開始關注電商領域并發現了類似機會。東南亞智能手機市場增長迅速，2013年18至35歲的印尼人當中17%擁有智能手機。統計公司皮尤（Pew）稱，到2018年比例已經上升至66%。然而，現有電商網站都為電腦設計，而東南亞消費者很少擁有電腦。
李小東將Shopee開發成優先移動端的平臺，并將游戲玩家吸引到平臺上以降低早期獲客成本。舉例來說，Shopee是購買Garena Shells最便宜的地方，Garena Shells是玩家在Garena的游戲里使用的數字貨幣。李小東還在兩個平臺上整合了相同的數字支付系統，盡可能減少購買不流暢的感覺，確保用戶可以購買想要的設備和商品。
現在Shopee向東南亞以外的新市場擴張時也在重復這一招。2019年，Sea在巴西推出Shopee應用程序，《Free Fire》一直是巴西最受歡迎的手機游戲。登錄Shopee的玩家能夠解鎖密碼以獲得游戲物品。Shopee在巴西業務規模仍然較小，但根據分析公司SimilarWeb的數據，目前Shopee已經成為巴西下載量最大的購物應用程序。
Garena和Shopee之間互通不僅限于功能。新加坡的歐洲工商管理學院（INSEAD）副教授杰森·戴維斯認為，Garena讓Shopee充滿了“游戲DNA”。
“游戲公司發展非常迅速，有很多創新，客戶對新產品的要求也非常高。”他說，“Garena的創新方式在電商行業同樣適用。”
最重要的是，Sea已經掌握了注意力經濟，通過精心策劃的創新吸引了越來越多眼球。例如，《Free Fire》的開發者經常根據本土名人推出新角色，在各個國家專門調整。印尼的玩家可以扮演印尼武術家兼演員喬·塔斯利姆。印度的玩家能夠扮演寶萊塢演員赫里尼克·羅斯漢。在巴西和埃及等新興市場，Garena聘請巨星DJ制作只有游戲里才可以播放的獨家歌曲。
Shopee還特別推出了本地意見領袖主持的現場測試。獎品是能夠用于網站消費的Shopee Coins。平臺還根據各國消費者口味調整商品。比如，印尼版Shopee就有叫Shopee Pilih Lokal的分區，意思是“Shopee選擇本地”，專門出售蠟染和穆斯林時裝等。Shopee并不是東南亞唯一采用相關策略的電商企業：去年Lazada推出了LazLive，主要推動直播售賣。不過新加坡風險投資公司Golden Gate Ventures的合伙人賈斯汀·霍爾表示，Shopee嘗試的市場更多，策略也更成熟。他指出，Shopee成功主要因為“非常了解當地人的喜好和購物習慣”。盡管剛開始李小東用折扣吸引顧客，但之后也可以保持用戶的活躍度。
Sea能保持熱門嗎？
經歷了2020年大發展之后，Sea的發展之路上仍然存在三個潛在障礙。首先是游戲業務的不確定性。到目前為止，Sea主要依賴Garena的利潤。但即便最流行的游戲也有生命周期。公司預計《Free Fire》至少還能夠增長兩年。問題是，之后會怎樣？
為了開發出下一款像《Free Fire》一樣的爆款，去年Sea向開發熱門游戲《無畏》（Dauntless）的加拿大公司鳳凰實驗室（Phoenix Labs）支付了一筆未披露金額的資金。在《無畏》游戲中，玩家可以獵殺追捕全球大災難幸存者的怪物。后續可能出現類似的投資。去年，Sea成立了名叫Sea Capital的投資部門，專門收購有盈利項目的小公司。雖然Sea很難復制《Free Fire》，但Garena資金相當充沛，不管是本地版權還是國際大作都能夠輕易買下，確保后續盈利。
第二個問題關于忠誠度。如果Shopee為追求利潤降低激勵，用戶還可以不離不棄嗎？咨詢公司RedSeer最新調研顯示，確實有可能。RedSeer的東南亞主管羅桑·拉吉稱，2019年參與調研的電商消費者最關注折扣。但到2020年秋，消費者的偏好發生了變化。“人們對價格關注降低，更在意安全和方便。”拉吉說。
這一趨勢表明，只要Sea能夠讓用戶滿意順暢的物流體驗，就有空間降低優惠。Sea在中國臺灣地區市場已經嘗試，盡管削減了送貨補貼，提高了每筆訂單向零售商收取的傭金，Shopee在臺灣地區市場仍然明顯領跑。
第三個也是最大的問題是SeaMoney，也就是Sea旗下的金融服務部門能否贏得競爭。Sea在金融科技領域與Grab和GoTo的競爭最為激烈，主要因為潛在回報非常巨大。東南亞有近3億人沒有銀行服務。在印尼和菲律賓，該比例高達70%。近幾個月來，Sea等科技公司掀起了一股熱潮，搶著收購印尼的銀行，希望轉為數字公司。
從預訂出租車到預約按摩，東南亞仍然有數百萬人使用Grab和 GoTo提供的各種服務，不過到目前為止還沒有涉及金融領域。“人們認為Grab和GoTo不是金融服務公司。”戴維斯說，多年來他一直在研究東南亞的超級應用程序。“我還沒有發現哪家公司品牌可以占主導地位。SeaMoney有機會。”
現金充沛將是決定性因素，這方面Sea贏得了早期領先優勢。“公司的業績鋪好了跑道，接下來才有機會沖刺搶先。”戴維斯說道。（財富中文網）
譯者：馮豐
審校：夏林
In February 2020, the developers of Free Fire, the world’s most popular mobile video game, launched a new feature. Free Fire is a high-octane battle royale in which players’ avatars dash around a virtual world killing each other with elaborate weapons like the Vector Akimbo (a submachine gun) and the Katana (a Samurai sword). But the new feature offered something different. Called the Training Ground, it's a zone where you can practice your skills away from the adrenaline of competition or simply hang out with friends. You can ride a Ferris wheel or zip around on skateboards. You can set off fireworks and go to a private movie theater. The Training Ground couldn’t have come at a better time: Just as the real world was entering pandemic-era lockdowns, this virtual world was opening up, offering players new ways to socialize via avatar. The more time players spend in the game, the more likely they are to spend money, tricking out their characters with in-game purchases like costumes, guns, and pets. In 2020, Free Fire helped generate $3.2 billion in gaming revenue for its maker, Sea Limited.
Sea is a Singapore-based tech company that went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2017. In addition to gaming, it operates other business lines, including Shopee, an Amazon-like e-commerce site that sells a variety of goods, from electronics and home appliances to food and beauty products, and SeaMoney, a digital financial services arm. Sea’s diverse portfolio puts it squarely in competition with Grab and GoTo—two ride-hailing, food-delivery, and fintech giants—in the intensifying battle of Southeast Asia’s super-apps. Each company is bidding to become the region's most popular one-stop digital shop for an array of services. Sea’s gaming division, called Garena, may seem like something of a sideshow in this contest. But during the pandemic, the profits that division generates—more than $2 billion in 2020—are giving Sea the financial firepower to outgun its rivals.
Sea’s pandemic-era edge
Consider how Sea's gaming prowess has bolstered its e-commerce business. With many white-collar workers logging in from home, Shopee was always poised to do well during the COVID crisis. But Sea lavished investment on the platform to gobble up market share, luring customers with tasty offers of free shipping and cash back, and attracting new retailers by reducing its commission on sales. Shopee lost $1.3 billion in doing so, but orders were up by 130% year on year in 2020 to 2.8 billion, and revenue rose by 160% to $2.2 billion. For the first time, Shopee overtook its main regional competitor Lazada, owned by China’s Alibaba Group, as the most popular e-commerce site in Southeast Asia.
The pattern repeated itself in digital payments. In 2019, Ovo, an e-wallet company that partners with Grab, and GoPay, GoTo’s fintech platform, were the clear leaders in Indonesia, the region’s largest market. Yet 12 months later, Sea’s ShopeePay had more users than either of them, according to a study by Ipsos. Shopee’s large customer base in Indonesia boosted ShopeePay’s user numbers—the in-house wallet is the slickest payment option on the e-commerce site—but Sea also offered ShopeePay customers cash back on purchases. They can also use ShopeePay on Google Play and at big chains like Wendy’s and Krispy Kreme.
With Shopee, Sea is also moving into food delivery, a sector it until recently has ignored. The food delivery service it runs in Vietnam, called Now, overtook Grab in 2020. Orange-clad riders from ShopeeFood are catching up with the green-uniformed fleets of Grab and GoTo on the streets of Jakarta, where the company is offering 60% discounts. Although it's early days for Shopee’s food delivery business, the parent company’s scale and wealth give it a huge advantage. As Yanjun Wang, Sea’s chief corporate officer, told investors on an earnings call earlier this year, “We do become the market leader naturally.”
Investors are taking note. Before COVID-19, Sea’s share price was hovering at $45. It now trades at over $280—a gain that outperforms that of Amazon and Tencent over the same period and makes Sea, now worth around $147 billion, the most valuable company in Southeast Asia.
In 2020, Grab and GoTo, both of which are unprofitable, had to raise money through round after round of appeals to private investors as they suffered a downturn in their core ride-hailing business. Sea, as a group, has yet to turn a profit either; net losses in 2020 totaled roughly $1.6 billion. But Garena's divisional profits are funding exceptional growth for the company overall, and investors seem satisfied with that strategy for now.
Last May, Sea raised over $1 billion from a sale of convertible notes, followed by another $3 billion through a secondary share offering in December. The sales added to a cash pile that amounted to $5.7 billion by the end of the first quarter of 2021.
Most analysts agree that Sea’s extraordinary rise accelerated Grab’s decision to go public with a SPAC merger, announced earlier this year. The same goes for GoTo, the result of a May 2021 merger between the Indonesian ride-hailing business Gojek and Tokopedia, an Indonesian e-commerce company. Executives of the combined entity say they plan to take it public in a joint listing in Jakarta and on the Nasdaq that could come as early as this year.
Grab's SPAC merger, which is expected to close by year-end, presumes an equity value of $39.6 billion, up from a reported valuation of $14 billion following the venture's most recent funding round in October 2019. GoTo's investors assumed the two companies had a combined valuation of $18 billion when they merged; executives of the Jakarta-based venture say they will seek a valuation of $35 billion to $40 billion when the company goes public. The question is whether Grab or GoTo can hold back Sea’s great wave.
Sea’s gaming origins
Forrest Li, Sea's 43-year-old founder and CEO, arrived in Singapore in 2006. Born in the Chinese city of Tianjin, he attended Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where, according to Bloomberg, his inability to understand the local dialect drove him to spend his nights playing video games in an Internet café. After graduation, he worked in the China divisions of Motorola Solutions and Corning, before heading to the U.S. for an MBA at Stanford. Among his classmates was Liqian Ma, the Singaporean woman he would later marry. At her graduation ceremony in 2005, Li heard Steve Jobs’ famous commencement address, in which the Apple cofounder exhorted students to “stay hungry, stay foolish.” Li has said Jobs’ speech encouraged him “to jump out of the corporate world and turn myself into an entrepreneur.”
Li’s first attempt failed. Shortly after he and Ma settled in Singapore in 2006, he founded GG Game, which focused on developing single-player video game titles at a time when multiplayer games were booming in popularity. It eventually shut down. In 2009, Li went in a different direction.
As Li got to know Southeast Asia’s gaming market, he realized it had a problem. Gaming companies from the U.S. and China hadn’t invested in server infrastructure in the region, which meant their games were often slow and cumbersome to play. What’s more, they were designed for the high-powered smartphones, consoles, and PCs that were ubiquitous in the rich world but unaffordable in places like Indonesia and the Philippines, where gamers used cheap devices with lower bandwidth.
His solution was Garena, which he set up in a Singapore shophouse with seed money from Toivo Annus, the late cofounder of Skype. The company launched local-language versions of international hits like League of Legends and FIFA, with a technical infrastructure that made the games as fast and responsive on a mid-range phone in Jakarta as they would be on a high-end device in Los Angeles. Li's strategy won Garena tens of millions of users, as well as the attention of tech giants like Tencent, which became an early investor. Garena’s gamers formed a ready-made audience for Free Fire when Li unveiled it in 2017. It wasn't original: Fortnite and PUBG had already popularized the battle royale genre. Li simply made it available to players in emerging economies who had been ignored by the industry.
Sea declined to make Li and other company executives available for interviews.
Li turned his attention to e-commerce in 2015, spotting a similar opportunity. The market for smartphones in Southeast Asia was growing fast: In 2013, 17% of Indonesians ages 18 to 35 had one. By 2018, that number was 66%, according to Pew. And yet the existing e-commerce sites were designed for computers, which few Southeast Asian consumers owned.
Li developed Shopee as a mobile-first platform, and he lured his gamers to it to reduce the cost of acquiring early customers. For example, Shopee is the cheapest place to buy Garena Shells, the digital currency players use for purchases in Garena’s games. Li also incorporated the same digital-payments system on both platforms to make purchases as frictionless as possible, and made sure they could buy the kinds of devices and merchandise they wanted.
Shopee is now repeating this trick as it expands into new markets outside Southeast Asia. In 2019, Sea launched the Shopee app in Brazil, where Free Fire was—and remains—the most popular mobile video game. Players who log in to Shopee can unlock codes to acquire in-game items. Shopee’s Brazilian operation remains small, yet according to analytics firm SimilarWeb, it's currently the most downloaded shopping app in the country.
The crossover between Garena and Shopee is more than merely functional. Garena imbued Shopee with what Jason Davis, an associate professor at Singapore's Insead business school, calls “the DNA of gaming.”
“Gaming companies move very fast, with a lot of innovation and very high demands from customers for the latest thing,” he says. “There’s something about the way Garena does innovation that works well in e-commerce too.”
Above all, Sea has mastered the attention economy, drawing ever more eyeballs with carefully targeted novelties. Free Fire’s developers, for example, tailored the game to particular countries by introducing new characters based on local heroes. Gamers in Indonesia can play as Joe Taslim, an Indonesian martial artist and actor. In India, gamers can appear in the guise of Hrithik Roshan, a Bollywood actor. In newer markets like Brazil and Egypt, Garena has hired superstar DJs to create exclusive songs accessible only through the game.
Likewise, Shopee has featured live quizzes hosted by local influencers. The prizes are Shopee Coins to be spent on the site. The platform tailors other initiatives to national tastes. The Indonesian version of Shopee, for example, features an area called Shopee Pilih Lokal, meaning “Shopee chooses local,” which is dedicated to products like batik and Muslim fashion. Shopee isn’t the only e-commerce business in Southeast Asia to adopt these tactics: Lazada last year launched LazLive, a section dedicated to livestreaming. But Justin Hall, partner at Singapore venture capital firm Golden Gate Ventures, says Shopee has done it in more markets and with more sophistication. Shopee’s success, he says, is due to “a better understanding of local preferences and shopping habits.” Although Li has enticed customers with discounts, he has also made sure to keep them engaged.
Can Sea stay hot?
After its performance in 2020, what can stand in Sea’s way? There are three potential obstacles. The first is the uncertain nature of the gaming business. So far Sea has relied heavily on Garena’s profits. But even the most popular games have a shelf life. The company expects Free Fire to grow for at least another two years. The question is, what comes next?
To increase its chances of developing a successor to Free Fire, Sea last year added to its in-house expertise by paying an undisclosed sum for Phoenix Labs, the Canadian company that makes the hit game Dauntless, in which players kill monsters that prey on survivors of a global cataclysm. Similar investments are likely to follow. Sea last year launched an investment arm called Sea Capital that will help the company acquire smaller outfits with profitable titles. Even if Sea fails to replicate Free Fire, Garena's pockets are so deep that it could simply buy regional publishing rights to international hits to keep its coffers full.
The second question is about loyalty: Will customers stick with Shopee even if it reduces incentives in search of profitability? Recent research by consulting firm RedSeer suggests they may. According to Roshan Raj, RedSeer’s head of Southeast Asia, discounts were the top priority for e-commerce consumers surveyed in 2019. But by the fall of 2020, sentiment had changed. “It was less about pricing, more about safety and convenience,” Raj says.
That trend suggests Sea has room to reduce the offers it dangles in front of customers so long as it can keep them satisfied with a streamlined logistical operation. It is already doing so in Taiwan, where Shopee remains the clear market leader despite cutting its shipping subsidies and increasing the commission it charges retailers on each sale.
The third question, and the biggest, is whether SeaMoney, Sea’s financial services division, can conquer the competition. Sea’s battle with Grab and GoTo will be fiercest in fintech, not least because the potential rewards are so enormous. Almost 300 million people in Southeast Asia are unbanked. In Indonesia and the Philippines, the proportion is as high as 70%. In recent months, tech companies, including Sea, have engaged in a feeding frenzy, buying up Indonesian banks in hopes of turning them into digital firms.
Although millions of people across the region use Grab and GoTo for a plethora of services, from ordering taxis to booking massages, so far finance hasn’t been one of them. “People don’t think of Grab and GoTo as financial services companies,” says Davis, who has been studying Southeast Asia’s super-apps for years. “I don’t see any one company having a dominant brand yet. There’s an opportunity for SeaMoney to build one.”
Access to cash will be decisive, and here Sea has an early lead. "Their performance," Davis says, "gives them a runway to push hard and get ahead.”
