UPDATE 1-Singapore's Sea quarterly profit misses estimates, shares down

(Recasts paragraph 1, adds adjusted profit to paragraph 6)

May 16 (Reuters) - Sea Ltd missed first-quarter profit estimates on Tuesday as it set aside more money for loans that could go sour in its digital finance services business, sending the Singapore-based company's shares down about 10% in premarket trading.

The Singapore-based e-commerce and digital entertainment company had gained from a pandemic-led boom in gaming and online shopping, helping it hit a market cap of more than $200 billion at its peak in late-2021.

But Sea's shares have lost 75% of their value in 2022, as benefits from the pandemic fizzled out and inflation slammed the brakes on consumer spending.

For the reported quarter, the company swung to profit of $87.3 million from loss of $580.1 million a year ago.

Provision for credit losses at its digital financial services segment also rose 120.5% to $177.44 million.

Excluding items, earnings per share in the first quarter was 15 cents per share, lower than expectations of 40 cents per share, according to Refinitiv data.

Revenue for the quarter ended March 31 was $3.04 billion, compared with analysts' average estimate of $3.07 billion.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)