Introduction to Management

Introduction to Management

1. Introduction

The telecommunications industry is a fast changing industries and empowering industry that helps to connect people and making daily life convenient. However with the fast changing world of technology today, new innovations can be outdated within short period of time. In the field of telecommunications industries, differentiation in merely technology will not assist the company to stand out from the others.

Although the telecommunications industries in Singapore shows a significant growth over the years, advancing many other companies in South East Asia region and the highest data usage rate was captured in the 4th quarter of 2015 (https://www.techinasia.com/talk/digital-southeast-asia-q4-2015), the small size in geographical landscape and population resulted the market to be dominated by the 3 telecommunications company (SingTel,  Starhub and M1).

1. Company Description        

The Singapore telecommunications industry took a change from 1997 when the Government announced to end the monopolization of the mobile services by SingTel on 1996.  

This gave the opportunity for M1 to enter the telecommunication market and started to launch its commercial services from 1997. Founded by Keppel Telecoms Pte Ltd and SPH Multimedia Private Limited in 1994, M1 took a new approach by introducing 24- hours’ customer service hotline, longer off- peak hours and bundled short messaging service (SMS). More than 35,000 sign up for cellular services was signed up within 3 weeks of launch.  

Since then, M1 has been received numerous award and the first telecommunication company to launch a 4G service nationwide as well as ultra high speed fixed broadband, fixed voice and other services on the NGNB (Next Generation Nationwide Broad band Network).

M1, owned by Keppel Telecoms Pte Ltd (19.08%) and SPH Multimedia Pte Ltd (13.28%), Axiata Investments (Singapore) Limited (28.32%) and 60.68% of M1 with the rest owned by institutional and public investors was listed in the SGX from 2002 onwards.

Both Keppel Telecoms and SPH Multimedia are linked to Temasek Holdings, the investment organization of the Singapore Government.

In the recent search by Ryan Tay, senior research manager of Telecoms at IDC Asia Pacific, they estimated M1 to having 23 percent market share of Singapore mobile subscribers. Alvin chua. (2011). Singapore Telecommunications. Retrieved 8 May, 2016, from http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1610_2011-03-21.html

On the first quarter of 2015, M1 scored 2nd in term of 4G mobile phone coverage at 98.64% compare to Starhub 98.38% in the IDA outdoor area survey which include HDB areas, Main roads, Town centres, outdoor recreational areas and above ground MRT tracks. (www.ida.gov.sg/Tech-Scene-News/Facts-and-Figures/4G-Service-Monitoring/4G-Mobile-Service-Coverage-in-Q1-2015)