MARKET TRENDS

The volume and variety of data carried through telcos’ networks continue to grow rapidly.

Customers are consuming and co-creating an increasing amount of information, photos and videos on the internet. Emerging trends – such as connected appliances, big data and cloud computing – will fuel demand for data services across both fixed-line and mobile platforms.

Telcos are competing for customers with better coverage, faster internet speeds and improved services. Much investment is necessary to maximise customer experience. Only telcos with sustainable pricing models and differentiated services will be able to continually make these investments.

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES

To capture the growing data demand, Group Consumer is focused on delivering the best customer experience with faster speeds, greater coverage, and innovative and useful products. We are also committed to help our regional mobile associates build necessary data-centric capabilities and create better data products and operating models.

In FY 2015, we invested more than S$3 billion in network infrastructure and spectrum across Singapore and Australia.

In India, Airtel secured precious wireless spectrum for more than 290 billion Indian Rupees, or more than S$6 billion. Our associates in other markets have similarly made significant investments in their networks and spectrum.

We will continually review our business models and pricing structures to ensure fair returns for our investments.

OUR ASSETS / STRENGTHS

As a group, we serve over 550 million mobile customers in Asia, Australia and Africa, encompassing developed and emerging markets. This creates benefits in several ways:

• Scale benefits: We enjoy economies of scale in areas such as procurement, technology deployment and marketing, as business partners work with us as a collective group.
• Shortened learning curve: As individual companies go through different stages of market development, we gain experiences that could be useful for other companies in the Group. By sharing our knowledge and insights, we help one another shorten the learning curve, navigate common challenges and be more effective against competition.

We have strong positions in our markets.

In Singapore, Singtel is the market leader in mobile and consumer home services, which are delivered over modern networks and with creatively bundled content and price plans.

In Australia, Optus is the second-largest telecommunications group with a strong brand that stands for great customer experience, simple products and a fast, reliable network.

Our regional mobile associates are leading mobile operators in Thailand (AIS), India (Airtel) and Indonesia (Telkomsel), and number two in the Philippines (Globe). Through Airtel, we also have a presence in 17 African countries. Our associates have been actively upgrading their mobile networks and are poised to capture the growth in mobile data services.