# Speedtest® Market Report

### Singapore

#### Published May 24, 2017

Speedtest data from Q4 2016-Q1 2017 is in, showing that Singapore has some of the fastest internet speeds on the planet. With an average fixed broadband download speed of 180.61 Mbps and an average mobile download speed of 44.37 Mbps, the country ranks second in the world for both. Even better, Singapore’s fixed broadband and mobile speeds are continuing to improve with 18.1% and 16.4% increases, respectively, over the same period the year before.

Improvements to infrastructure are coming soon with internet and mobile provider Singtel announcing plans to build a sub-sea cable connecting to Australia and opening more connections to the Southeast Asia markets. On the mobile front, a fourth carrier, the Australia-based TPG Telecom recently won a bid to enter the market. With its entrance into the market, TPG Telecom will introduce a new kind of competition to a market where all other carriers are partially state-owned.

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## Market Analysis

Among the smallest nations on the planet — smaller even than Special Administrative District that is Hong Kong and with 1/10th the population density — Singapore is home to 5.8 million people. Singaporeans are young, with a median age of 34.3 years, as compared with 37.9 in the United States. Given that most Asia-Pacific youth are more likely to have access to smartphones than television, the 13% of Singapore’s residents that are 14 and younger are likely to fuel the demand for connectivity in the future.

The gross national income per capita in Singapore in 2015 was $52,090, rivaling that of the United States ($55,980) and other Western nations. Singapore’s economy is driven by tourism, biomedical sciences, finance, construction and logistics, industries that are all seeing constant evolution and expansion. Most notably, Singapore is rocketing forward as a technology leader, with new growth anticipated in key areas such as information technology, medical technology and creative industries, contributing to the demand for greater mobile and broadband capacity and top connectivity. Early in 2016, Singapore’s Economic Development Board announced a USD $13.2 billion investment in science and technology research to aid innovation in advanced manufacturing, including the aerospace industry. In late 2016, Twitter moved much of its Asia-Pacific headquarters to Singapore. TransferWise, an online money transfer company, announced in April it would set up its Asia Pacific hub in Singapore. Netflix began streaming in Singapore in 2016. Also in April, the e-commerce operator Lazada Group SA began offering a loyalty program, teaming with Netflix and Uber to offer discounts on services and free delivery on purchases, with a mobile app anticipated later in 2017. Also in April, GE partnered with the Singapore-based SP Group to develop industrial Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities and boost the power network in Singapore, with GE also opening an Asia Digital Operations Center in the city-state.

In 2006, Singapore’s Infocommunications Development Authority (IDA) laid strong groundwork for this technological expansion when it authored the Intelligent Nation 2015 initiative. This 10-year master plan aimed to boost the nation’s information and communication infrastructure to add value to the economy and society. The plan called for 90% home broadband usage and 100% computer ownership in homes with school-going children. In addition, Singapore was recently cited alongside Sweden as a world leader in internet inclusivity.

While the internet is seen as offering huge opportunities in Singapore, the government also mandates controls that might surprise western audiences. For example, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) takes a three-pronged approach to internet content regulation, requiring ISPs and content providers to “safeguard values and promote healthy growth”. It also encourages self-regulation and has adopted an active public education program for parents to instruct them on how to monitor children’s internet activity. In 2013, Singapore required major news sites to pay a licensing fee and register with the government. And in April, the Parliament announced that it planned to update its Broadcasting Act in the wake of the “fake news” scandals that erupted during the U.S. presidential election in 2016, possibly a way to introduce tighter controls in a country where the same political party has held power since 1959.

Regulatory control will likely continue to evolve as the Singapore government struggles to balance growth with the expansion of internet access and availability. This is a common struggle throughout Southeast Asia where the digital economy is expected to grow 6.5-fold during the next 10 years.

## State of the Industry

Singapore benefits from multiple competitive providers of high-speed internet services. As of 2015, Singapore had 26.4 broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, ranking it 29th in the world for internet subscribers, following the U.S. (24th) and leading Australia (34th) and all other Southeast Asian nations. Currently, 82% of the population, or 4.6 million people, use the internet, which puts Singapore 30th in the world and ahead of other Southeast Asian nations including Malaysia and Brunei (both 71%), Vietnam (53%), Philippines (40%), Thailand (39%), Indonesia (22%) and Laos (18%).

Most of the 12.3 million broadband subscriptions are wireless broadband with 10,808,100 subscriptions, or 88% of the market. Optical fiber broadband had 1,050,900 subscribers, or about 9.7% of the market. About 2.5% (302,000) were cable modem subscribers, 0.8% (102,500) DSL, and 0.2% (12,300) dial-up. As early as 2004, the IDA was involved in planning market trial deployments of wireless broadband. One can only imagine that the unique combination of a small geographical area and a forward-thinking government body contributed heavily to the enviable availability of this technology.

Singapore is a highly mobile-connected nation, with almost 147 mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Many people carry more than one mobile device and there are 8.3 million mobile subscriptions in the country. That ranks the small, but wired, nation 32nd globally in terms of mobile connectivity, just ahead of Qatar and behind Lithuania. For comparison, the United States ranks 91st.

### Singapore Fixed Broadband Speeds

### Report Stats

#### TEST COUNT:

1,511,933

#### 1-YEAR CHANGE (DOWNLOAD):

18 %

#### 1-YEAR CHANGE (UPLOAD):

20 %

In Q4 2016-Q1 2017, Singapore saw an average download speed of 180.61 Mbps over broadband and an average upload speed of 167.56 Mbps. Those speeds represent improvements of 18.1% and 20.2%, respectively, over the Q4 2015-Q1 2016 download speeds of 152.96 Mbps and 139.37 Mbps for uploads. These speeds rank Singapore second in the world for fixed broadband.

### Competitive Overview

Singapore has a highly competitive market. The ten ISPs include up-and-comers like WhizComm and ViewQwest that are quickly competing with mainstays SingTel, StarHub, MyRepublic and M1. Singtel is the market leader, controlling about 43% of the broadband market in Singapore. In late 2016, WhizComm became the cheapest broadband provider, offering 1GB fiber broadband for 24 months at USD $23 per month, passing up M1 as the previous most inexpensive provider (USD $28/24 months).

In 2016, providers Singtel and M1 launched Gigabit Passive Optical Network services, offering speeds capable of reaching 10 Gbps. ViewQwest then also began offering a 10 Gbps service. In April, Telstra, Google, SingTel, SubPartners and Ooredoo announced plans to construct an undersea cable network connecting 9,000 km of spectrum-sharing cable with Perth, Australia by mid-2019. StarHub recently upped capacity after disruptions to their home broadband network in October. And in late April and early May several bidders emerged for M1, including Batelco of Bahrain and China Broadband Capital.

### Singapore Fastest ISPs

### Download

#### FASTEST: ViewQwest

ViewQwest offers the fastest download speeds over broadband in Singapore. Originally oriented toward businesses, the company started offering residential fiber in Singapore 2012. In 2014 they became the first ISP in Singapore to offer 2 Gbps service and the company recently began offering service in Oman and Malaysia.

### Upload

#### FASTEST: M1

The provider of the fastest upload speed over broadband, M1 is the smallest of three companies that provide both broadband and mobile services in Singapore. The company was the first to introduce fiber service in Singapore in 2010.

Speedtest data on top 10% download performance in Q4 2016-Q1 2017 shows the fastest broadband provider in Singapore is ViewQwest with 899.35 Mbps, a 1.0% decrease from Q4 2015-Q1 2016. M1 has the fastest upload speed at 692.85 Mbps, a 12.0% increase over the same period the year before.

#### HOW SPEEDTEST MEASURES FIXED BROADBAND

When analyzing Singapore overall, we use the average speed, as it represents the experience of a typical consumer in Singapore. We take into account all consumer initiated test results regardless of technology type or whether the computer was on a wired or Wi-Fi connection to the router.

When ranking ISPs offering fixed broadband service, we use top speed performance. This is determined using the 90th percentile of the download and upload speeds, or Top 10%, of each ISP’s Speedtest results as this represents the performance a consumer could reasonably expect to receive if they subscribe to one of the ISP’s higher tiers of service. These customers will generally pay more for their service than the average subscriber. The 90th percentile is dependent on the underlying speed distribution for each ISP, meaning that providers who offer lower, and often lower-priced, tiers of service will have slower 90th percentile speeds. For purposes of this report, only Top Providers in a given location were included in the analysis. Each ISP that accounts for at least 3% of the total sample size in the geographic area are included as a Top Provider.

### Singapore Mobile Speeds

### Report Stats

#### TEST COUNT:

211,803

#### 1-YEAR CHANGE (DOWNLOAD):

16 %

#### 1-YEAR CHANGE (UPLOAD):

13 %

Singapore’s average mobile download speed was 44.37 Mbps in Q4 2016-Q1 2017, an increase of 16.4% over the same period the year before. That ranks Singapore second globally, behind only Norway. Singapore’s average mobile upload speed of 17.46 Mbps in Q4 2016-Q1 2017 is the fastest in the world and represents a 13.9% gain over the previous year.

### Competitive Overview

Singtel is Singapore’s largest mobile operator with a market share of 49% as of December, with StarHub and M1 sharing the rest of the mobile market at about 27% and 23%, respectively. The three carriers, all with some government-linked ownership, have been the sole operators in Singapore for about 15 years.

That’s about to change as a fourth carrier enters the marketplace. In December, Australian firm TPG Telecom won a bid in the New Entrant Spectrum Auction to enter Singapore’s telecom market. That edged out competitor MyRepublic, already an internet provider in Singapore, which had hoped to secure the market itself. TPG Telecom expects to begin operating in 2018 and was provisionally allocated the full 60 MHz offered in the auction. However, Singtel aims to continue to dominate the market, recently securing the largest blocks of spectrum rights, the most allowable on the 700MHz and 900MHz bands. That will allow Singtel to see significant capital expenditure savings on 4G once the analog switch-off occurs, possibly by January 2018. All three incumbent carriers are preparing for the competition as they’ve cut prices for post-paid mobile clients.

### Singapore Fastest Mobile

### Download

#### FASTEST: Singtel

Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) offers the fastest mobile download speeds in Singapore. It is one of the largest mobile network operators in the world with over 600 million customers across 25 countries.

### Upload

#### FASTEST: Singtel

Singtel is also the fastest carrier for mobile uploads. The company is also one of the largest ISPs in Singapore and actively invests in innovation companies through the Singtel Innov8 initiative.

Mobile customers can’t make a bad choice in Singapore. The competition for fastest mobile provider has carriers Singtel and StarHub in a neck-and-neck battle. Singtel is the fastest with an average of 49.80 Mbps for download and 19.27 Mbps for upload in Q4 2016-Q1 2017. Stepping on its heels, however, is StarHub, with an average download speed of 48.32 Mbps and upload of 16.89 Mbps. In fact, StarHub’s download speed was just slightly faster than Singtel in Q4 2016. The third carrier, M1, placed a respectable third with 38.30 Mbps for download and had faster upload speeds than StarHub with 17.87 Mbps.

#### HOW SPEEDTEST MEASURES MOBILE CARRIERS

The top mobile carriers in Singapore are ranked using the average download speed of “Modern Devices” - those devices that are capable of connecting to the fastest, broadly-available wireless networks. In Singapore, this means devices capable of 4G LTE. This ensures we provide an accurate view of the typical performance a user can achieve using a modern smartphone or tablet on a given mobile network. Top carriers are those that each account for at least 3% of the sample size in the geographic area. When analyzing the country as a whole, we use the mean value of all cellular results to account for the typical user. However, when analyzing individual carriers, we look at “Modern Devices” to account for top speeds available in Singapore.

## Market Summary

Competition and growth define Singapore’s internet sector and spell out good news for consumers. ISPs and mobile carriers, which are often the same companies, are working overtime to garner as large a share of the market as they can. The small and tech-savvy nation already has one of the fastest broadband speeds on the planet and is still working to improve the technology, adding infrastructure like fiber to boost speeds even more, while at the same time cutting prices for basic services to attract subscribers.

The addition of a fourth mobile carrier, TPG Telecom, and the addition of an undersea cable network between Singapore and Australia, will likely further improve consumer experiences and create more connectivity opportunities. With government agencies launching initiatives to boost innovation, technology and research, consumers will continue to see more growth both on the broadband and mobile fronts.

The continued forward momentum of Singapore’s technology-based economy makes it an exciting place to watch in terms of growth in the communications sector.

Written with contributions by Nikki Kallio.

This report was updated on June 1, 2017 to clarify the fixed broadband methodology.

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