Is SingTel front running StarHub’s race for IPTV?


Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has launched its IPTV service, the first-ever pay TV challenge to monopoly cable-TV provider StarHub. SingTel is also the first operator in Asia to commercially launch an IPTV service based on the Microsoft IPTV platform.

SingTel, Southeast Asia's largest telephone operator, says its IPTV offering, dubbed the "mio TV" service, will have 33 channels and will be cheaper than StarHub's monthly minimum cable TV fee of $19.82. It won't have a mandated basic package, with subscribers free to pick and choose on an a la carte basis - all they have to do is meet a $10.61 per month "minimum spend" on content. The cheapest choice is $2.12 per month for a music channel (it appears to be the local equivalent of MTV) to $8.49 per month for a high-definition-channel package. "Customers have been calling for choice and flexibility in the pay-TV market, and now they have it," claims SingTel CEO Allen Lew.

The service will come with all the goodies - high-definition channels, video on demand (VoD) with both international blockbuster and Cantonese movies (for as little as 33 cents per film in a 25-films-per-month package) and time-shifting using a personal video recording (PVR) function via an 80 GB hard drive in the set-top boxes. There's also a plan afoot to dish up content from some channels via mobile TV to viewers with compatible mobile phones.

Although sign-ups start on 21^st July, the first set-top boxes won't be installed until August 6^th. Some lucky Singaporeans, though, have been getting the service for months. Trials of the service began late December last year. Indeed, as we reported, SingTel got such a large response to a call for volunteers to test the service that it quickly closed the sign-up list. In addition to Microsoft, the big winner in Singapore is Alcatel-Lucent, which is providing the hardware plus a complete services-integration solution that brings together the network infrastructure and software platform. HP ProLiant servers are being used in the system Alcatel-Lucent has put together, and Harmonic reportedly is providing the video head-end systems.

SingTel is further planning future "mio"-based services, including video conferencing and instant messaging, displaying photos and playing music, all from a PC but displayed on the TV set. SingTel also is said to be preparing to take the IPTV service to various other Asia Pacific countries where it has telephone operations.

So with StarHub facing competition from SingTel’s new product will they be forced to alter their product to rise to the challenge? mio TV comes into the competition as a front runner for homes where StarHub cable TV is still not available – a surprisingly large area of the nation. Furthermore, SingTel is offering its PVR function at a far more affordable price than the S$304.95 StarHub currently asks for the ‘Hub Station’ box, which carries out the same smart-TV features. With SingTel’s new product will StarHub be forced to alter its pricing or add extra, and superior, features to its pricy alternative?

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SP AusNet to acquire Alinta?






SP AusNet, an Australian power distributor 51 percent-owned by Singapore Power, is still in talks with its parent about acquiring some Alinta assets.

SP AusNet Chairman Ng Kee Choe revealed in an address that Singapore Power intends to offer Melbourne-based SP AusNet the opportunity to acquire transmission and distribution assets of Alinta, if the purchase of Alinta assets by Singapore Power and other buyers is approved. If the board pursues the offer, SP AusNet shareholders will need to approve it, he continued.

Singapore Power, the island state's monopoly in electricity supplier and partner Babcock & Brown agreed to buy Perth-based Alinta, Australia's biggest energy transmission company, in May for about A$8 billion (US$7 billion) to carve up assets. The Singapore company is due to get distribution networks and an energy asset management unit in eastern Australia, and two gas pipelines.

“We look forward to the opportunity this may provide SP AusNet,” Managing Director Nino Ficca said in a web-cast address. “SP AusNet is dedicated to evaluating future opportunities for investment and acquisition in Australia and New Zealand.”


This proposed acquisition bares similar resemblance to the rumoured Macquarie takeover of Qantas earlier this year, which eventually fell through. As Australian’s face the prospect of additional purchases of home-grown businesses companies by that of rivals corporations, will they become increasingly exasperated? Should the negotiations turn sour, what could this mean for future investments by Singapore companies looking for similar private equity deals in outside businesses?

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Singapore Homes Sky-Rocket, But Is the Price Getting Too High?




The price of private homes in Singapore rose to the highest in almost 10 years in the second quarter of this year as the city’s current economic expansion has allowed developers to sell apartments at record prices.

By June, residential property had risen in price by 7.9 percent to 147.3 points in just three months, the Urban Redevelopment Agency revealed in a statement on July 2nd. This rise is recorded the fastest in almost eight years and the highest level seen since the fourth quarter of 1997.

Director of Savills Singapore, Ku Swee Yong said “Based on some of the funds we are bringing and the deals we are seeing, Singapore’s attractiveness has increased tremendously.” He continued to add that “there’s a lot of wealth growth and a very important indicator is the confidence going forward.”

Singapore’s economy is enjoying its longest expansion since 1994, which is allowing developers to sell apartments at very high prices. At the end of June ‘The Marq’ apartments, by SC Global Development, sold for an astonishing $5,100 (US$3,327) per square foot. Moreover, Citigroup Global Markets commented that home prices in the city could rise as much as 25 percent this year.

At the end of last year, Swee Yong forecast that home prices may rise up to 20 percent in 2007. He may now have to revise his estimate.
Figures released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority are only preliminary and are based on transaction prices recorded during the first 10 weeks of the quarter. They followed that the statistics are to be updated four weeks later; however the first measure increased 4.8 percent.

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