# Sea Stock After Q3 2026: Shopee Isn't the Problem — InvestMoat Research

_Sea's stock has been priced as a marketplace under pressure from TikTok Shop, but in Q3 2026 Shopee's sellers paid about 51% more in fees on 23% more sales. We think the marketplace moat held, and the risk in the stock now sits in Monee's loan book._

_Published: November 13, 2026 · Last reviewed: November 13, 2026 · Canonical page: https://www.investmoat.com/research/sea-q3-and-the-fees-shopee-sellers-paid_
_Tags: Earnings, E-commerce, Pricing Power, Fintech_
_Covers: SE_

## Summary

Since March, Sea has traded as a marketplace under pressure from TikTok Shop, and Q3 2026's slowdown in Shopee's GMV growth to 23% from 28% fits that story. Shopee's own numbers point the other way: core marketplace revenue, the commissions and ads sellers pay, rose 51%, and Shopee's adjusted EBITDA rose 45%, faster than the group's 29%. A marketplace losing its sellers could not charge them that much more. The lines that lagged were Monee, Sea's lending arm, whose revenue rose 64% while its adjusted EBITDA rose 16% as group credit provisions jumped 82% and bad loans ticked up, and Sea's small newer businesses, so credit is where we would look for the next disappointment.

## What would prove this wrong

If Shopee's core marketplace revenue grows less than 10 percentage points faster than its GMV in both Q4 2026 and Q1 2027, while GMV growth stays below 25%, sellers are pushing back on fees and Shopee's pricing power has run out, and we're wrong.

_Status as of November 13, 2026: **holding**._

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**We think Shopee's moat held in Q3 2026, and the risk in Sea's stock has moved to its lending arm.** Since March, investors have [priced Sea as a marketplace under pressure from TikTok Shop](https://thelowdown.momentum.asia/sea-group-shares-dropped-16-what-happened-to-shopee/), and GMV growth (the value of goods sold on Shopee) slowing to 23% fits that story. But Shopee's sellers paid about 51% more in commissions and ads, and its adjusted EBITDA rose 45%. A marketplace losing its sellers can't charge them that much more. The lines that lagged were Monee, Sea's lending arm, and Sea's newer bets, so for the stock we'd watch the loan book before the GMV line.

**Sea's Q3 2026 against Q3 2025. Shopee's fees and profit grew faster than the group's profit; Monee's profit lagged its revenue as credit provisions jumped. Group adjusted EBITDA for Q3 2025 is as restated in the Q3 2026 release ($874M as first reported), after Sea moved a Garena deferred-revenue item out of the measure.**

| Line | Q3 2025 | Q3 2026 | Change |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Shopee GMV | $32.2B | $39.7B | +23.3% |
| Shopee core marketplace revenue (commissions and ads) | $3.1B | $4.6B | +50.6% |
| Shopee sales and marketing expense | $895M | $1,432M | +60.0% |
| Shopee adjusted EBITDA | $186M | $269M | +44.7% |
| Monee revenue | $990M | $1,622M | +63.9% |
| Monee adjusted EBITDA | $258M | $298M | +15.5% |
| Group provision for credit losses | $374M | $682M | +82.3% |
| Group adjusted EBITDA (Q3 2025 restated) | $722M | $931M | +28.9% |

_Figures as of November 10, 2026. Source: [Sea Limited Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results (Business Wire, via Finviz)](https://finviz.com/news/419799/sea-limited-reports-third-quarter-2026-results); [Sea Limited Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251110762666/en/)._

## Sellers paid more and stayed

Core marketplace revenue is what sellers pay Shopee: transaction fees plus ads. When it grows twice as fast as GMV, Shopee is taking a bigger cut of each sale. [On the call](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/sea-se-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript), CEO Forrest Li said "our ad take-rate improved by over 80 basis points year-on-year." The fee line has outgrown GMV by more than 20 points for five straight quarters.

**Shopee's fee revenue has grown at least 20 points faster than its GMV for five quarters, and held near 50% as GMV growth dipped in Q3. Marketing growth has climbed every quarter and passed fee growth for the first time in Q3, which is the counter-case below.**

| Period | Core marketplace revenue growth | GMV growth | Sales and marketing growth |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Q3 2025 | 52.8% | 28.4% | 17.2% |
| Q4 2025 | 50.2% | 28.6% | 25.4% |
| Q1 2026 | 61% | 30.2% | 40.4% |
| Q2 2026 | 65.6% | 28.4% | 56.6% |
| Q3 2026 | 50.6% | 23.3% | 60% |

Q3 2026: GMV slows to 23%.

Year-over-year growth as printed in each quarterly release. Sales and marketing growth is Shopee's line in each release's segment expense table (labelled E-commerce in 2025).

_Figures as of November 10, 2026. Source: [Sea Limited Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251110762666/en/); [Sea Limited Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/4Q2025/JcKns4LaJC8bxcQdJwXz/2026.03.03%20Sea%20Fourth%20Quarter%20and%20Full%20Year%202025%20Results.pdf); [Sea Limited Reports First Quarter 2026 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/1Q2026/HEEdeRDe0NyiZ1PrWIvH/2026.05.12%20Sea%20First%20Quarter%202026%20Results.pdf); [Sea Limited Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/2Q2026/wFBC39MbqnfLb3MGY6LP/2026.08.11%20Sea%20Second%20Quarter%202026%20Results.pdf); [Sea Limited Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results (Business Wire, via Finviz)](https://finviz.com/news/419799/sea-limited-reports-third-quarter-2026-results)._

For a moat question the fee line matters more than the GMV line. A buyer can shop anywhere, so GMV moves with vouchers and free shipping. A seller pays more only if leaving would cost more: the buyers, the reviews and the ad tools are all on Shopee. Sellers kept paying more in the quarter GMV slowed, and research firm Momentum Works ranked Shopee first in all six Southeast Asian markets in 2025 (table below).

Most of the extra fees didn't reach profit. Shopee collected about $1.5 billion more in core marketplace revenue than a year earlier, spent about $0.54 billion more on marketing, and absorbed higher logistics and other costs. Its adjusted EBITDA still rose $83 million, to about 0.68% of GMV from 0.58% by our arithmetic. Small, but rising while a rival spends to catch up.

## Where the profit went

Group adjusted EBITDA rose 29%, behind Shopee's 45% and Garena's 46% on Sea's new basis. Monee grew revenue 64% on a loan book up 60% to $12.6 billion. Its adjusted EBITDA rose only 16%, because group provisions for credit losses rose 82%. Other Services, the bucket for Sea's newer businesses, lost $84 million against $25 million a year earlier.

Li [put Monee's uptick down to](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/sea-se-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript) "an evolving credit environment, especially in Thailand and Brazil" and said Sea had adjusted underwriting for selected customers "at early signs of softness." That's a sensible response, but lending is where a bad year compounds: a book growing 60% a year shows its losses a few quarters after the loans go out. Garena's bookings rose just 6% on flat users, a growth problem more than a moat problem.

**Monee's share of loans more than 90 days overdue was flat near 1% for four quarters and rose to 1.3% in Q3 2026. This is the line we'd watch for the stock.**

| Period | Monee 90+ day bad-loan ratio |
| --- | --- |
| Q3 2025 | 1.1% |
| Q4 2025 | 1.1% |
| Q1 2026 | 1.1% |
| Q2 2026 | 1% |
| Q3 2026 | 1.3% |

Q3 2026: Thailand and Brazil soften.

Ratios as printed in each quarterly release. The annotation is management's explanation on the Q3 2026 call.

_Figures as of November 10, 2026. Source: [Sea Limited Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251110762666/en/); [Sea Limited Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/4Q2025/JcKns4LaJC8bxcQdJwXz/2026.03.03%20Sea%20Fourth%20Quarter%20and%20Full%20Year%202025%20Results.pdf); [Sea Limited Reports First Quarter 2026 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/1Q2026/HEEdeRDe0NyiZ1PrWIvH/2026.05.12%20Sea%20First%20Quarter%202026%20Results.pdf); [Sea Limited Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/2Q2026/wFBC39MbqnfLb3MGY6LP/2026.08.11%20Sea%20Second%20Quarter%202026%20Results.pdf); [Sea Limited Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results (Business Wire, via Finviz)](https://finviz.com/news/419799/sea-limited-reports-third-quarter-2026-results); [Sea (SE) Q3 2026 earnings call transcript (Motley Fool, via Nasdaq)](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/sea-se-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript)._

## The case that Shopee is cashing in

The strongest case against us reads the same chart backwards. A rising take rate with slowing GMV is what harvesting looks like: Shopee charges more because it can for now, and sellers who pay more list on TikTok Shop too. The rival is big enough to make that real, and in Vietnam it has closed most of the gap in two years.

**Shopee still leads, but TikTok Shop is close enough that sellers have somewhere to go. Regional figures are Momentum Works estimates for 2025. Vietnam 2023 is Momentum Works and Vietnam 2025 is Metric's four-platform count, both as cited by KrASIA, so the two years are not measured the same way.**

| Measure | Shopee | TikTok Shop |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Southeast Asia platform GMV, 2025 | 53% share, first in all six markets | GMV about 66% of Shopee's (including Tokopedia, the Indonesian marketplace it merged with) |
| Vietnam GMV share, 2023 | 61% | 24% |
| Vietnam GMV share, 2025 | Above 56% | Above 41% |

_Figures as of April 14, 2026 (region); March 3, 2026 (Vietnam). Source: [Southeast Asia's platform ecommerce reaches US$157.6B in 2025](https://thelowdown.momentum.asia/new-report-southeast-asias-platform-ecommerce-reaches-us157-6b-in-2025-with-top-platforms-expanding-share-to-98-8/); [TikTok Shop narrows the gap with Shopee in Southeast Asia's e-commerce market (citing Metric and Momentum Works)](https://kr-asia.com/tiktok-shop-narrows-the-gap-with-shopee-in-southeast-asias-e-commerce-market)._

Ads are the soft spot in our argument. Li [said](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/sea-se-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript) monetization "continued to do well, driven by ads," and an ad fee is partly a toll sellers pay to stay visible. That works until a seller earns less on Shopee ads than on TikTok Shop, and then the fee pushes sellers out instead of proving they're locked in. A quarterly release won't show that turn until it has happened.

Shopee's margin is also less steady than one quarter suggests. Its adjusted EBITDA fell 16% year over year in Q1 2026, when the release pointed to higher logistics costs and more shipping subsidies. And marketing growth has climbed every quarter in the chart, from 17% to 60%, passing fee growth in Q3 for the first time. If each new point of take rate goes back out as buyer subsidies, the fees prove sellers are stuck, but not that Shopee keeps the money.

We take that seriously, so here is our test. If Shopee's fee revenue grows less than 10 points faster than its GMV in both Q4 2026 and Q1 2027, while GMV growth stays under 25%, sellers are pushing back and we're wrong. For now they're paying more through the slowdown, and this quarter's new risk came from Monee's borrowers.

## Sources

1. [Sea Limited Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results (Business Wire, via Finviz)](https://finviz.com/news/419799/sea-limited-reports-third-quarter-2026-results) — Sea Limited, November 10, 2026 (press-release)
2. [Sea Limited Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/2Q2026/wFBC39MbqnfLb3MGY6LP/2026.08.11%20Sea%20Second%20Quarter%202026%20Results.pdf) — Sea Limited, August 11, 2026 (press-release)
3. [Sea Limited Reports First Quarter 2026 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/1Q2026/HEEdeRDe0NyiZ1PrWIvH/2026.05.12%20Sea%20First%20Quarter%202026%20Results.pdf) — Sea Limited, May 12, 2026 (press-release)
4. [Sea Limited Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results](https://cdn.sea.com/investor/4Q2025/JcKns4LaJC8bxcQdJwXz/2026.03.03%20Sea%20Fourth%20Quarter%20and%20Full%20Year%202025%20Results.pdf) — Sea Limited, March 3, 2026 (press-release)
5. [Sea Limited Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251110762666/en/) — Sea Limited, November 11, 2025 (press-release)
6. [Sea (SE) Q3 2026 earnings call transcript (Motley Fool, via Nasdaq)](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/sea-se-q3-2026-earnings-call-transcript) — Motley Fool, November 10, 2026 (transcript)
7. [Southeast Asia's platform ecommerce reaches US$157.6B in 2025](https://thelowdown.momentum.asia/new-report-southeast-asias-platform-ecommerce-reaches-us157-6b-in-2025-with-top-platforms-expanding-share-to-98-8/) — Momentum Works, April 14, 2026 (third-party)
8. [TikTok Shop narrows the gap with Shopee in Southeast Asia's e-commerce market (citing Metric and Momentum Works)](https://kr-asia.com/tiktok-shop-narrows-the-gap-with-shopee-in-southeast-asias-e-commerce-market) — KrASIA, March 3, 2026 (third-party)

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