SingTel deal could be a big deal for Apple
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jan 29, 2008 at 5:51am
As we reported yesterday, a Bangkok Post newspaper report emerged Monday of a local telephone company in Thailand, Advanced Info Systems (AIS), talking with Apple in selling the iPhone for Thailand. The report also hints at a bigger deal involving up to eight countries.
I don’t know of any other company in this kind of position in the region as SingTel. This kind of deal represents some smart thinking by SingTel and Apple. I hope they can pull it off. And who else but Apple could pull it off.
Australia’s largest telephone company Telstra reaches into New Zealand and Vietnam and Hong Kong only via shareholdings but these don’t have 136 million customers—it is more like 20 million at tops. Japan telephone companies stick to domestic investments. China too generally unless it is in failed Africa states or Myanmar (Burma).
Macsimum Contributing Editor Gaurang Donovan has produced stock company research coverage on all but the Bangladesh one. “They’re known entities and not something to look down on,” he tells me.
SingTel (Singapore telecom), like the Singapore government (GIC) and investment fund (Temesek) organizations, have talent and professionalism and have been very shrewd investors over the years, especially in their nearby regional countries, Donovan says. They seem to apply a kind of management consultancy to the companies they invest in and improve them through showing them a better way to operate.
Cross your fingers. This could be a major deal for Apple, if the reports are true.
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
