Singapore firms DBS and Sea Limited surpass US$100B market cap for first time

SINGAPORE: For the first time, two Singapore companies—DBS Group Holdings and Sea Limited—have surpassed the US$100 billion (S$128 billion) market capitalisation mark, according to Companies Market Cap’s data on the 76 largest firms in the city-state by market value.

On June 10, DBS became the first Singapore-listed company to surpass the US$100 billion mark in market capitalisation, ranking 22nd among global banks by market value, Bloomberg reported.

Morningstar analyst Michael Makdad attributed much of DBS’s strong performance to the “larger growth of its wealth management.” Singapore Business Review also reported that Moody’s Ratings projected the bank’s solvency and liquidity to remain strong through 2025 and 2026.

As of this August, DBS is joined by Singapore-based e-commerce and financial services company Sea Limited, which has a market cap of US$103.01 billion, making it the world’s 191st most valuable company by market value, according to Companies Market Cap.

Market capitalisation, or market cap, refers to the total market value of a publicly traded company’s outstanding shares and is commonly used to measure a company’s worth.

According to Companies Market Cap data, Sea Limited first reached a market capitalisation of US$100 billion by the end of 2020 and came close to US$200 billion in 2021, before its market value fell sharply.

The South China Morning Post reported that this “rebirth” is driven not only by a smooth app and clever pricing but also by SPX Express—Shopee’s in-house logistics arm. In the past, Shopee relied largely on external couriers such as J&T Express and Singapore Post.

In 2021, a pandemic-fuelled surge in online shopping strained Shopee’s delivery network, prompting Sea CEO Forrest Li to commit nearly US$1 billion to build its own logistics system—a risky move amid a nearly 90% share price drop, layoffs, and overseas closures, but one that ultimately paid off.

Since the start of 2024, Sea Limited’s share price has surged over 300%.

While the rise of the second hundred-billion-dollar company in the city-state was hailed by some netizens as “the best thing that happened to consumers”, a netizen said it may be the “worst thing to happen to retailers”. Meanwhile, another netizen noted that “Shopee will dominate Southeast Asia within the next decade.” /TISG

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