Aug 15 Reuters Technology firm Sea Ltd signaled on Tuesday it will boost investments in its core ecommerce business which may lead to losses in some quarters, pivoting its strategy after months of cost cuts and weak performance in the second quarter.

U.S.listed shares of the company were down over 21 in early trading.

Southeast Asia39;s biggest listed technology firm began a major overhaul last year involving cutting its workforce by 10 and lowering marketing spends, which helped Sea deliver its firstever quarterly net profit in December.

However, the rapid rise in digital services has largely tapered from the boom seen during the peak pandemic period, with Sea39;s topline growth dropping to singledigits in the past three quarters from over 100 seen in some quarters of 2021.

We have started, and will continue, to ramp up our investments in growing the ecommerce business across our markets. Such investments will have impact on our bottomline and may result in losses for Shopee and our group as a whole in certain periods, said Forrest Li, chairman and group CEO at Sea.

Sea posted mixed results in the three months ended June 30, as tepid consumer spending amid a challenging macroeconomic outlook pressured its ecommerce business and caused a steep decline in its mobile gaming unit.

Revenue grew 5.2 from a year earlier to 3.10 billion, below Refinitiv estimates of 3.20 billion. However, per share earnings were a comfortable 12 cents higher than expectations at 54…