Executive vice-president Mr Lucas Chow told reporters in a news conference held late on Friday that the company was interested in the mobile markets of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and China and was in talks with several operators in these countries.

"SingTel has an ambition to do a regional 3G network because at the end of the day, size is everything. Development costs are high and we need to have an extensive rollout," Mr Chow said, in comments embargoed for release until Monday.

In SingTel's domestic market, Chow estimated that SingTelwould need to spend S$1.3 Billion (US$747 million) over 10 years just building the network infrastructure for 3G.

He said the figure excluded the cost of the licence and also product and content development that would be needed for 3G.Mr Chow said his view was that 3G licences should be given to dominant players in their respective markets as they would already have the customer base which would need to migrate to the new network.

He said SingTel's regional mobile strategy would vary from country to country depending on the regulators and the opportunity.In Hong Kong for example, which announced last week that it would offer four 3G licences for auction to pre-qualified bidders, Mr Chow said SingTel was in talks with some operators for a joint bid.

Hong Kong on radar
"Hong Kong is on our radar screen. Our best cast scenario is to partner a good incumbent," he said, but he declined to say which of the six domestic telecom operators SingTel was in talks with. SingTel was earlier reported to be in discussions with New World Mobility, a unit of New World Development, for their mobile business.

"We are still talking but these things don't happen overnight. New World is one possible partner for 3G," Mr Chow said.He said while SingTel was always interested in buying network infrastructure (when they were for sale), it was also open to buying services on a wholesale basis from dominant players and reselling them to the customer. Mr Chow also gave an update on SingTel's 50:50 joint venture with Virgin Mobile to offer mobile services in Asia first announced in May.

He said the two companies were close to finalising the shareholders agreement and Virgin Mobile would offer its services in Singapore in the first quarter of 2001. He said the joint venture, which would be run independently with a separate board, expected to take five per cent of the mobile market in Singapore within 18 months.

It also plans to launch its services in Hong Kong and Taiwan within the same time frame.

"There will be some cannabilising from SingTel but it will take more from our competitor," he said. On SingTel's recent acquisition of a stake in Indian telecom operator Bharti Group, Mr Chow said the focus would be to help the company to build a National network.

Domestic market holding
On the domestic front, Mr Chow said SingTel Mobile, which has 1.2 million subscribers or about 60 per cent of the market, continued to hold its own despite the government opening the telecom market fully in April, two years earlier than expected.

He said revenue per user a month remained largely flat at $90 Despite the drop in mobile phone rates as it was made up of customers making longer international and domestic calls.

An area of strong growth was data traffic with the growing popularity of sending short messages over the cellular phone. Mr Chow said that he expected data traffic to contribute to more than 20 per cent of revenue in two to three years from the current estimated 10 per cent.