With a mobile penetration rate of 159.1 percent and high smartphone usage, Singapore is an attractive market for foreign vendors. In early 2020, Apple was the market leader among mobile vendors in Singapore with a market share of approximately 33.6 percent.
There are now 11 telcos in the country. The major telecom providers, Singtel, M1 and StarHub are recently joined by other companies such as Circles.Life and MyRepublic. The advent of lower cost plans offered by the new players and incumbent telcos’ sub-brands, such as Singtel’s Gomo and StarHub’s Giga, have led more to seek new SIM-only and off-contract plans across multiple telcos.
Social networking, calling and messaging as well as work-related activities are some of the most popular uses of smartphones among Singaporeans. More and more locals are also using their personal mobile devices for online transactions. This frequency and intensity with which Singaporeans use their smartphone opens-up infinite opportunities for companies to reach their customer. However, a recent study found that most Singaporeans do not install security applications in their mobile devices which saw an increase in cybersecurity lapses in the past year.
In the fourth quarter of 2019, the average mobile data usage in Singapore was estimated at 42.51 petabytes per month. As smartphones continue to become an integral part of everyday life, Singapore plans to issue licences to operate two full-fledged 5G networks and two smaller ones with limited coverage. 5G airwaves for islandwide reach (the 3.5Ghz band) will be available only in 2021.
