In 1879 Singapore became one of the first cities in the East to have telephone service. Singapore Telephone Board (STB) was incorporated as a statutory board with exclusive rights to operate telephone service within Singapore. STB and Telecommunications Authority of Singapore (TAS) merged in 1974. In 1988, a subsidiary, Singapore Telecom International, was formed. This marked the beginning of SingTel’s expansion into overseas markets. The corporatisation of SingTel in 1992 was followed by its Initial Public Offering a year later. It remains Singapore’s largest ever IPO.
The SingTel Group is Asia’s leading communications group with more than 130 years of operating experience and has played a pivotal role in the country’s development as a major communications hub which provide a wide spectrum of multimedia and Info-Communications Technology (ICT) solutions, including voice, data and video services over fixed and wireless platforms.
Business and Development
Today, SingTel continue to lead and shape the local digital consumer market and the enterprise ICT market. They are a major communications player in Asia and Africa through their strategic investments in six regional mobile operators, namely Telkomsel (Indonesia), Globe Telecom (the Philippines), Advanced Info Service (Thailand), Warid Telecom (Pakistan) and PBTL (Bangladesh). The Group also has investments in Bharti Airtel (India), which has significant presence in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Africa. They are a long term strategic investor and work closely with the associates to grow the business, by leveraging their scale in networks, customer reach and extensive operational experience. The Group serves 468 million mobile customers around the world.
In May 2009, SingTel signed A$500 million, five-year contract with ANZ to provide telecommunications and managed network services to ANZ in Australia and 30 countries across Asia and the Pacific to support ANZ’s super regional strategy.
References: http://business-strategy-competition.knoji.com/Singapore Telecom-businesslevel-strategy/ From case study 1 – Singapore Telecom: Strategic Challenges