Free Fire maker Garena reports 41% revenue drop in Q2, but parent company calls its performance 'encouraging'
Singapore-based tech giant Sea has issued a financial report for the second quarter ended June 30. Here are all the figures related to its gaming arm, Garena, known for its mobile battle royale Free Fire.
Key takeaways
- According to Sea’s latest report, its Digital Entertainment division (Garena) reached $529.4 million in revenue in Q2, down 41.2% year-over-year and down 1.9% quarter-on-quarter.
- The company attributes the decline to “moderation in user engagement and monetization year-on-year.”
- Bookings were $443.1 million, down 38.2% year-over-year and 4.1% compared to the previous quarter. Average bookings per user were $0.8.
- Quarterly active users reached 544.5 million, up 10.8% quarter-on-quarter, and quarterly paying users were 43.1 million (up 14.6%).
- Garena’s operating income was $296.4 million, down 35% year-over-year.
- During an earnings call, Sea CEO Forrest Li called Garena’s performance in the second quarter “encouraging” as “Free Fire showed sustained signs of improvement in user retention and engagement.”
- Moving forward, Sea plans to launch more games “involving complex genres and gameplay” to its key markets.
- The company didn’t disclose Free Fire’s quarterly revenue, only saying that the game “started to see quarter-on-quarter growth in bookings.”
Although Garena operates third-party mobile games in certain regions, such as EA’s FIFA Online 4 (in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam), mobile battle royale Free Fire remains its main product.
Last year, the company faced some trouble when the game was banned in India over a potential threat to the country’s privacy and security. This situation is similar to PUBG Mobile, which was blocked several times by the Indian government and was finally allowed to be relaunched in May 2023.
