SingTel to set up mobile innovation centres

SingTel is setting up four mobile technology innovation centres worldwide, marking its next ambitious push into the digital content space currently dominated by world giants Google, Amazon and Facebook, Straits Times reports.

To be up and running in the next six months, the centres are part of efforts to transform the largest telco in Southeast Asia into a technology provider.

According to Allen Lew, CEO of SingTel's digital life group, the centres will be funded by the company and potential software partners, which will also supply researchers. One of the facilities will be based in Singapore but the location of the three global facilities has not been confirmed yet, ZDNet Asia notes.

The centres will focus on technologies such as data analytics, behavioural science, location sensing and mobile payment technology. The applications developed by the innovation centres will be commercialised and tested in the six Asia Pacific markets that SingTel operates in and will also be sold to other telcos and equipment makers worldwide.