SINGAPORE-Singapore’s smallest paging operator, Hutchison Intrapage, has quit the sector four years after it began operations. The shareholders-Hong Kong’s Hutchison Telecommunications (40 percent), Intraco (30 percent) and its subsidiary Teledata (30 percent)-looked for a buyer for the loss-making operations for two years, and after failing, have decided to quit.
The company’s estimated 40,000 paging subscribers will be taken care of with minimum disruption. Hutchison has already informed the Infocomm Development Authority about its closure plans. IDA has started discussions with the country’s other three paging operators, SingTel Paging, MobileOne and SunPage, to see how they can all be given an equal opportunity to take over Hutchison’s subscribers.
Hutchison’s downfall is attributed to the fact that paging has fallen out of favor with Singaporeans. Paging penetration rates are falling each month, but most operators are finding new ways to maintain their subscriber bases. One way has been to bundle paging services with mobile phones.
However, Hutchison has not been able to do this because it does not have a cellular license. SingTel, M1 and SunPage all have cellular services.
At its peak in June 1998, there were almost 1.4 million paging subscribers in Singapore, representing a penetration rate of 43 percent, then the world’s highest. In December 2000, subscriber levels had dropped to 839,100 representing a penetration rate of 25.7 percent.
