Asian Telecom Conglomerate, SingTel with investments in Service Providers to Apps Developers has established the Group Digital Life initiative. GDL is running at EBITDA losses in excess of SGD100mn pa. There are no explicit break-even targets, and it will largely depend on what else it buys, in our view. More acquisitions could mean more losses in the initial years. We’d like to see various options SingTel may weigh to monetize these investments.
The initial focus for most investments (apps) is to scale users. However, a successful investment should see revenue monetisation by around five years, beyond which its value proposition may have to be re-evaluated altogether – e.g. if something isn’t generating revenue within five years, then one has to question its value proposition altogether.
Arguably, the app is originally
