Telcos must brace themselves for pricier handsets

This is due to the launch of iPhone 8 and Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

Singapore telcos would have to brace for higher subscriber acquisition and handset costs in the remaining months of the year with the launch of iPhone 8 and Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

According to RHB, the telcos would look to defend their mobile service revenues and lock in subscribers ahead of TPG's entry in 2018.

"Although SIM-only plans remain popular, we gather from the telcos that handset-bundled/contractual plans are still very much preferred. This supports the good recontracting activities in the market, with the telcos capitalising on the momentum to upsell data add-ons to subscribers," RHB said.

Of the three telcos, M1’s subscriber acquisition costs jumped the most in the first half of the year at 15% YoY.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia