Singapore Telecom

Singapore Telecom is a world-class provider of domestic, international and mobile telecommunications as well as postal services. Turnover and net profit for the Group in 1998/99 were S$4.88 billion and S$1.96 billion respectively. Publicly listed in October 1993, Singapore Telecom is Singapore's largest company in terms of market capitalization.

The Singapore Telecom Group has invested more than S$2.5 billion in telecommunications-related projects around the world, especially in the Asia Pacific. It owns interests in 54 ventures and operations in 19 countries including the Philippines, Thailand and Belgium. It has representative offices in 18 cities in Asia, North America and Europe.

For much of the 1990s, Singapore Telecom was, in absolute terms, the most profitable firm in Singapore, with a profit of S$1.88 billion for financial year 98/99. Notwithstanding this, at the turn of the century, the company faced a number of serious challenges and threats to its position as the leader in the telecommunications industry in Singapore.

There was the threat of a new full service provider entering the Singapore market in early 2000, which would remove Singapore Telecom's monopoly of the fixed line sector of the Singapore market.

The company had in 1997 lost its monopoly of the mobile sector with the entry of MobileOne, a cellular phone operator. Internet telephony also posed a serious challenge to international call revenues and the Asian economic crisis had also intensified competition amongst operators with intense downward pricing pressures.

Global trends pointed towards the convergence of telecommunications, computer and television technologies. These trends not only heightened the pace of change in the telecommunications companies but also resulted in major changes in government policies towards the industry.

The challenge to Singapore Telecom was to sustain its performance record in the face of an increasingly turbulent and hostile environment.