Sea Ltd. faces almost $1 billion quarterly loss as Free Fire remains banned in India, shuts some projects
Garena Free Fire's parent company, Sea Ltd., plans to halt its popular streaming platform Booyah!, according to multiple reports. The company has reduced its headcount by letting go of 30-40 employees and putting breaks in its development unit. The news, first reported by Reuters, came after the company faced a quarterly loss of a whopping $1 billion.
The Singapore-based company shut down several projects, including blockchain and public cloud projects, and cut many jobs to increase its profitability.
A spokesperson of Sea Ltd. told Reuters that the company had "made some changes to improve efficiency in their operations which would impact several roles for the long term strength of their ecosystem."
The company has also gradually lost $170 billion in market value since October last year. These losses come after the meteoric growth of Sea Ltd. and Garena during the COVID-19 pandemic, where online spending had also increased.
SEA Ltd., Southeast Asia's largest tech company, had 67,300 employees at the end of 2021, twice more than a year earlier, according to the company's most recent annual report.
The ban on Free Fire in India has put a slump in the country's booming gaming and esports market in the country. Stakeholders related to Free Fire have had to incur major losses over a short period of time. Before the ban, several Indian content creators used to stream on the Booyah app. The platform has hosted several tournaments with huge prize pools.
Earlier on February 14, 2022, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTy) banned the game along with 53 other apps. The ministry argued that these apps prove to be a threat to the security and privacy of Indian citizens.
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