SINGAPORE: Originally, there were three parties vying to be Singapore’s fourth telco, namely MyRepublic, TPG Telecom and airYotta. Last Wednesday, airYotta had to drop out from the race as it did not meet the Infocomm Media Development Authority’s (IMDA) criteria. This leaves MyRepublic and TPG Telecom in the hunt.
However, Singapore’s incumbent telcos experiencing revenue declines in its mobile business even before the fourth telco even hits the Garden City’s shores. Here’s a look at what is happening to the average revenue per user (ARPU) for the three companies in the latest quarter.
As it turns out, Mobile pre-paid’s average revenue per user (ARPU) was $16 in the latest quarter, down from $18 recorded a year ago. Post-paid ARPU was also down from $71 to $69 during the same time frame. During its earnings briefing, StarHub said that the decline was due to lower usage of roaming and IDD calls. StarHub ended the quarter with 1.37 million post-paid customers and 902,000 pre-paid customers.
