Three years ago, I attended Singtel’s 2015 annual meeting to find out more the management’s response to the possible entry of a forth telco in Singapore. Since then, Australia’s TPG has been confirmed as the newest telco and the local telco industry has changed drastically with competition intensifying among the current players. Singtel’s regional associate, Bharti Airtel, also faces increasing competition in its home market in India.

With this, I decided to Singtel’s AGM this year to glean new insights from the management about the company and the telco industry.

Here are five things I learned from the 2018 Singtel AGM:

1. A shareholder wanted to know about Singtel’s progress on the 5G network in Singapore. The management explained that consumer application for the 5G network is still not ready yet. It is expected to roll out only after 2020. As for enterprise application, it is in the process of ...