Staff at Booyah, the game-streaming and community app owned by Sea gaming unit Garena, have been told they will be fired and the app will no longer be updated, the person said. That would mean 30 to 40 job cuts, one of the people said.
The tech giant’s development arm, Sea Labs, is closing some of its biggest experimental projects and laying off workers, including blockchain and public cloud projects, the people said.
Sea has shut down major projects and fired “dozens” of people, saying it was related to Sea’s plans to boost profitability, a third person with knowledge of the situation confirmed.
A spokesman for Sea said the company had “made a number of changes to improve the efficiency of our operations, which affect multiple positions,” and said it would focus on “the long-term strengths of our ecosystem.”
The spokesman declined to say how many jobs were affected.
Sea was doing well during the pandemic, but then suffered setbacks, with shares down more than 72% this year. In March, Sea warned that Garena was being affected by the Indian government’s ban.
In June, Sea reportedly made layoffs not only in Southeast Asia, but also its e-commerce unit Shopee in Mexico and Latin America.
The New York-listed tech company reported a bigger-than-expected second-quarter loss last month and withdrew its e-commerce forecast for the year, sending its shares down 14%. Garena’s quarterly paid subscribers also fell 39% during the quarter.