Cristiano Ronaldo and 'Baby Shark' helped a Singaporean e-commerce group triple its sales last quarter

Theron Mohamed

November 14, 2019 5:03 PM

Cristiano Ronaldo and "Baby Shark" drummed up business for a Singaporean shopping site last quarter.

Ronaldo Shopee

The soccer star dances to a remix of the viral children's song while swiping on Shopee's mobile app in the company's latest advertising campaign.
"Building on our successful branding campaign featuring the football icon, Cristiano Ronaldo, we recorded three times more orders on September 9 alone than we did a year ago during our 9.9 shopping event," CEO Forrest Li said on an earnings call this week.
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Cristiano Ronaldo and "Baby Shark" drummed up business for a Singaporean shopping site last quarter.

The Portuguese soccer star dances to a remix of the viral children's song while swiping on Shopee's mobile app in the company's latest advertising campaign. The bizarre video went viral in August.

"Building on our successful branding campaign featuring the football icon, Cristiano Ronaldo, we recorded three times more orders on September 9 alone than we did a year ago during our 9.9 shopping event," Forrest Li, CEO of Shopee's parent company Sea Limited, said on its third-quarter earnings call this week .

The Juventus forward helped to double Shopee's gross orders to 321 million and more than triple its e-commerce sales to $230 million, Sea's earnings showed . Moreover, Sea's digital entertainment revenues nearly tripled as its "Free Fire" and "Call of Duty: Mobile" games attracted new users and players spent more. The upshot was Sea's total revenues roughly tripled to $610 million, and its net loss narrowed by 6% to $206 million.

Shopee is an online shopping platform that operates in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Sea's revenues doubled to about $823 million in revenue in 2018, but soaring costs meant its net loss ballooned by 71% to $961 million.

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