Incumbent telcos willing to sacrifice revenue to keep market share: analysts

A telco hopeful will be having a hard time setting up.

A newcomer may introduce cheaper services to Singaporean customers, but analysts say the city-state’s telco triumvirate are willing to match those prices even if they get lower revenues, just to keep their share of the market.

According to a report by DBS, for example, M1 introduced new S$15 and S$20 SIM-only plans targeted at the lower-end users (<2GB/month data) in early March 2016 in response to MyRepublic’s S$8 plan for 2GB which does not offer traditional voice minutes.

Additionally, the report noted that all mobile players have slashed mobile data prices for post-paid users whereby effective monthly pricing for higher-end data subscribers (5GB plus) will decrease by 25%-50%.

“For example, subscribers can raise their data allowance by 2GB-3GB on their postpaid plans by paying only S$5.90 now versus S$21-32 earlier,” the report said.