SingTel tunes in mio TV on the go

SOCCER fans thinking about subscribing to SingTel’s fledgling pay-TV service for the 2009 UEFA Champions League now have another reason to sign up: besides catching the matches on their home TV, they can watch them on a 3G Nokia mobile phone.

From Saturday, SingTel pay-TV customers will be able to view 10 ‘live’ channels plus three with video- on-demand (VOD) on a compatible handset through the ‘mio TV on mobile’ service.

The channels include MediaCorp 8 and ChannelNewsAsia, China’s CCTV4, Dragon TV and Mei Ah, a Cantonese movie channel from Hong Kong. The VOD content is Mom-on-Demand and two channels dedicated to Korean drama series.

‘mio TV on mobile’ is billed as more user-friendly than existing 3G video streaming services offered by all three telcos. Instead of having to log on to a mobile Web portal, consumers simply download an application to their mobile phones.

By launching this tool, they will have access to an electronic guide with up to seven days’ programming information. They can also toggle between channels with the push of a button, much like using a standard remote control, according to SingTel’s vice-president of consumer marketing Wong Soon Nam.

‘What we want to do is to allow for a seamless user experience, whether it’s through the mobile or broadband,’ he told reporters at a briefing yesterday.

One drawback: the new service is supported only on 10 Nokia phone models such as the N76 and N81, but SingTel said more could be down the track.

The mobile programme line-up is extracted from SingTel’s mio TV service, an Internet offering it launched last July in a bid to break StarHub’s dominance of the pay-TV market.

Although mio TV offers nearly 43 channels, only 13 are currently available on its mobile counterpart due to licensing restrictions.

More content will be added and this could include streaming matches from the 2009 UEFA Champions League, Mr Wong hinted. This is because SingTel has secured cross-platform broadcasting rights for the sporting event, which allows it to screen the action over broadband and mobile networks.

Unlike existing 3G video streaming, consumers will not incur separate data charges for tuning in to SingTel’s mobile goggle box. The monthly subscription fee of $9.90 provides access to all 10 live channels and includes data transmission costs.

To entice users to sign up, SingTel is reducing the monthly charge to $6 and users will even get to use the service free until the end of July. This pricing excludes access to VOD content, which is charged at 50 cents per video clip.

SingTel, Bharti to form unit for MTN buy

India’s Bharti Airtel and partner Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) plan to set up a separate company for the acquisition of South Africa’s MTN Group , the Business Standard paper said yesterday, citing unnamed sources.

The special purpose vehicle (SPV) will raise funds, including bridge loans, and may later sell American Depositary Receipts or Global Depositary Receipts to repay the debt, it said, citing sources close to the deal. The SPV would be a subsidiary of unlisted Bharti Telecom, which owns about 45 per cent in Bharti Airtel.

When contacted, a spokesman from SingTel, which has a stake of about 30 per cent in Bharti Airtel, declined to comment.

According to the paper, MTN would not be offered a stake directly in Bharti Airtel as that may push foreign ownership in the Indian firm beyond the limit of 74 per cent permitted by Indian law. ‘The move to float an SPV will help Bharti Airtel to continue being listed on Indian stock exchanges, while MTN’s (major shareholders) will be given a stake in the SPV,’ the paper said.

Bharti, India’s top mobile telecoms operator, could raise funds by diluting the equity of the SPV, or the stakes of Bharti founders or SingTel, it said.

Media and analysts estimate that Bharti may value MTN as high as US$50 billion. Merging the two firms would create the world’s sixth-largest mobile operator, with more than 130 million subscribers in around two dozen countries. A spokesman for Bharti declined to comment.

Bharti said last week that talks with MTN were preliminary and that no bid has been made. — Reuters

Key takeaways from NDR

An Apple iPhone a day keeps the rivals at bay

THE first bout in the prize fight to land Apple’s iconic iPhone may have gone to SingTel but some market watchers are saying this is a hollow victory since the grey market is rife and the deal is likely to be non-exclusive. What these detractors have failed to see, however, is that the temporary advantage may just be enough to put the red camp in pole position with a new dawn for mobile competition.

This is because, come June 13, the desire to hold on to a treasured phone number will no longer prevent consumers from jumping ship as ‘true mobile number portability’ is set to kick in. When that happens, Singapore’s telecommunications regulator expects churn rates among telcos (or the percentage of users who switch) to be between 5 and 15 per cent, based on statistics from countries that have adopted similar regimes.

Using its most conservative estimate, this means that nearly 300,000 subscribers out of Singapore’s pool of 5.9 million could potentially defect. The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) strongly believes such churn is healthy and its new mandate can only benefit consumers as it keeps operators on their toes and forces them to think of new ways to attract customers. Against this backdrop, SingTel’s iPhone deal gives these 300,000 Singaporeans a good reason to initially see red instead of hues of orange and green.

For years, churn in the local mobile sector has been in the low single digits and market share movement between the three players is anything but significant. This is further proof that providing phone services has become somewhat of a lowest common denominator, since operators are largely offering identical services along with a common assortment of handsets.

But given the hype and pent-up demand for the iPhone – a combination iPod, cellphone and wireless Internet device – the outcome could be different this time. In the US, at least, the arrival of the iPhone reinvigorated the stagnant competitive landscape in less than one year.

Exclusive deal

SingTel will be banking on its timed-exclusive deal with Apple to achieve a smaller-scale success locally within three months.

Few handsets in history could boast having the same market-moving impact that Apple’s flagship phone has had.

In less than 12 months, the much-awaited phone – which boasts a large screen where users surf the Web by touching icons and typing in Web addresses on a virtual keypad – grabbed a market share of 27 per cent to be runner’s up in the US market. This is a feat that took competitors years to achieve.

Three months into its launch, Apple announced it had sold one million iPhones in just one market, which translates to nearly 13,000 units a day. This average has since doubled, following the phone’s launch in Europe. And in a single day, SingTel claims it has received ‘hundreds of inquiries’ – an early indicator that local consumer interest is piqued and they are eager to bite. After all, consumers in Singapore have waited more than a year for the iPhone to be officially sold here.

The three-month head start that SingTel is likely to get over rivals also leaves ample time for the company to ramp up the marketing machinery to make its iPhone a must-have for the holidays. In the cut-throat telco world where differentiation is becoming increasingly difficult, any competitive advantage, however short-lived, is quickly pounced upon and seized with an iron grip.

Priming the market

Some analysts say the rampant grey market will take some shine off SingTel’s iPhone win, but I think the reverse is true. The willingness of consumers to pay a premium to buy unlocked units from parallel importers and auction sites merely attests to the allure of Apple’s sexy device, and further primes the market for its official debut. At the end of the day, the gear lust to be among the first to own and experience the cult product is likely to prevail.

Furthermore, no one can accurately predict how big the local grey market is, though the unofficial figure of 10,000 has been used in some media reports. To put things in perspective, this number, even if it is true, represents merely 0.16 per cent of Singapore’s handphone user base. Essentially, the entire market is still up for grabs.

In addition, SingTel’s seasoned marketing gunsight will probably be aimed at the millions of everyday users and not the small pool of gadget-hungry early adopters. In this regard, the official endorsement from Apple is important since product warranty is a major consideration for less tech-savvy users. And judging from Apple’s previous successes with its iPod music players and Macbooks, the task of extending the iPhone’s appeal to the masses shouldn’t be too difficult, especially since latent demand is already present.

With true number portability on the horizon, SingTel has fired the first salvo in its bid to retain supremacy. This leaves StarHub and M1 to play catch-up in their attempt to cut a deal with Apple. But, in a way, the race is already lost; every day they spend negotiating now is an extra day of publicity gained for the red army before the iPhone comes marching in.