Top 10 Companies by Market Cap in Southeast Asia:

1. DBS Group (Banking): $130.25B

2. Delta Electronics Thailand (Electronics): $120.5B

3. OCBC Bank (Banking): $76.92B

4. Vingroup (Conglomerate): $60.31B

5. Singtel (Telecommunications): $60.30B

6. $SE (E-Commerce/FinTech): $52.79B

7. UOB (Banking): $46.45B

8. Bank Central Asia (Banking): $41.73B

9. Maybank (Banking): $35.92B

10. Flex (Electronics Manufacturing): $33.71B

The top 10 are dominated by banks (5/10), and the other 4 are generally old-industry or old-economy businesses, even though they now benefit from modern growth themes.

$SE is one of the few mega-cap SEA companies whose core value creation came from the post-Internet consumer economy, rather than from banking, telecoms, property, manufacturing, or resource-linked sectors.

The fact that 5/10 are banks show precisely how important Monee is. The largest profit pools are in financial services/intermediation.

Shopee’s e-commerce margins may always be debated, with bear theses like fulfilment costs, vouchers, shipping subsidies, seller incentives, TikTok competition, logistics investment, and category mix pressure.

Monee however, can be a totally different beast due to the ability to have multiple profit pools from consumer credit (BNPL, cash loans), SME/merchant lending, payments, insurance, wealth etc.

While much of the talk for $SE is focused on Shopee today (and rightfully so), I think most are underestimating how massive Monee can become if $SE executes well.