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Collapse of M1-Simba deal reveals chinks in Singapore’s cursed telco consolidation dream
A rollback to a three-player market is inevitable; the tragedy is how difficult the exit has become
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Published Wed, May 20, 2026 · 05:13 PM
[SINGAPORE] Everything in Singapore feels like it is getting more expensive – from hawker meals and groceries to public transport and utility bills. But the cost of one basic necessity has bucked that trend: mobile phone plans.
You might remember the bad old days when a basic mobile phone plan cost upwards of S$40 a month for a measly 2 GB of data. Today, you can easily find plans for under S$10 offering a hundred times that amount.
Singapore’s push to liberalise the telco sector and open the market to a fourth operator – now more than a decade ago – was meant to shake up the incumbents and lower consumer prices. It worked perfectly.
