Digital Life appears to be winding down. The relatively new CEO is moving to the US and being replaced by the Digital Enterprise MD, while the consumer services will be subsumed by the consumer business. That leaves Digital Life as focusing on digital marketing, big data and regional video (SingTel? OTT TV and VoD service HOOQ). We like the improved focus, and we like that this appears to indicate a contraction in the group?s interest in pushing into an area that has seen losses widen.
The trends were getting better, and the opportunity remains potentially large, so we do not bury the business yet. However the changes indicate that our belief in SingTel potentially developing a large-scale business may have been misfounded.
SingTel?s acquisition this week of online security Trustwave for US$850m was a further step in the digital direction. We agree that it appears a good asset, with a solid position in a growing market and an ability to sell its services to group companies to build scale. This represents a step by SingTel to strengthen its cloud services credentials. However, we fear that SOE/infrastructure firms are not the ideal owner of developing IP based services.
