MyRepublic, which started Internet services in Singapore in 2011, wants to take on mobile- phone companies including Singapore Telecommunications by offering wireless services in the city.
MyRepublic said it sent a proposal to the Singapore regulator to build a fourth mobile-phone network after the Infocomm Development Authority requested public feedback in April to improve the city’s mobile landscape.
The company would become Singapore’s first new mobile-phone operator since StarHub. started services in 2000 to compete with SingTel and M1. MyRepublic, run by Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Rodrigues, a former StarHub executive, is going after a slice of the $3.1 billion wireless market by offering a pure data plan with voice calls running through a smartphone application.
“The incumbents have legacy anchors they have to carry around -- we have a low-cost operating model that we can make money off,” Rodrigues said in an interview yesterday in Singapore. “We’re not coming in to take a 40% market share. Our intent is to take a 10 to 15% market share and cause some disruption.”
Singapore’s mobile-phone penetration rate was 156% in 2013, compared with 85% a decade earlier, according to the regulator’s data, as some residents have multiple subscriptions. So-called third-generation or high-speed mobile data subscribers reached 5.3 million in the fourth quarter, close to the city’s population, according to the regulator.
‘Saturated Market’
MyRepublic’s proposal includes using the incumbents’ networks while it builds out its own infrastructure, Rodrigues said.
“They’re fighting a very saturated market here,” Carey Wong, a Singapore-based telecommunications analyst from OCBC Investment Research, said in a phone interview. “It’s not going to be cheap to piggyback on existing telcos’ networks. It’s like taking a taxi versus driving your car. I’m not going to charge you the same price.”
Rodrigues said he expects the regulator to decide on the bidding process and offer the license in as early as nine months.
The Infocomm Development Authority, the regulator, intends to release its response in early 2015, it said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
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