- Keppel's AsiaPac aims expand into Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Vietnam, through acquisitions
- The company is leveraging a distributed operations model to optimize cost as it looks to grow its footprint across the region
- M1 is in the process of being acquired by Simba Telecom as competition heats up the market
The key to Keppel's expansion is AsiaPac, an integrated ICT company acquired by Keppel-owned M1 in 2018. While, Keppel announced this week the acquisition of M1 by Simba Telecom, the deal does not include AsiaPac, which continues to be part of Keppel. (The acquisition is pending approval by the Singaporean government.)
Through AsiaPac, M1 had previously acquired a 70% stake in Vietnam-based IT solutions provider ADG National Investment and Technology Development Corp, as well as Glocomp in Malaysia in 2021. These acquisitions will now help Keppel strengthen its footprint in both countries.
Besides Malaysia and Vietnam, AsiaPac is also exploring other markets, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and India, for future expansion. It continues to explore acquisitions to grow its presence in the region.
“If you look at the three components, there is a backend, which includes NOC [Network Operations Center] and SOC support and managed services support. This is out of Malaysia now. The mid-end, which includes solutioning, software engineering and software architecture support, these aspects are managed within these countries. And then the front end, which is application development for all the enterprises, we are trying to move to Vietnam as much as possible because software skills in Vietnam are good in terms of quality and cost,” explains Manjot Singh Mann, Chief Executive Officer at M1 and CEO of Connectivity as well as Chief Digital Officer at Keppel in an exclusive interation with Fierce Network.
This approach also helps AsiaPac with cost advantage since Singapore has a stronger currency compared to other countries in the region.
Growth of ICT biz in Southeast Asia
The growing digital transformation of enterprises, coupled with the rising adoption of AI tools and applications, is leading to the growth of the ICT business in the region. In addition, AsiaPac believes its experience of working with enterprises in Singapore will also help in growing its footprint.
“We have close to 36 enterprise deployments for 5G in Singapore, which has helped us develop interesting use cases. As countries around Singapore deploy 5G Standalone (5G SA), they are looking at enterprise use cases where we can help,” adds Mann. For instance, M1 recently collaborated with Vietnamese operator VNPT to deploy 5G use cases for Vietnam Maritime Corp to help them improve operational efficiency at its ports.
Commenting on the challenges faced in expanding footprint in other markets, Mann said, “Getting the right set of people who can culturally adapt to this expansion mode is very important, especially since we have been a Singapore-centric company. The other challenge, or opportunity, is the fast evolution of technology. Technology is evolving so quickly that if your gestation period is too long, by the time you establish yourself, the technology landscape has already changed. It is going to be interesting to see how well we can read the future and invest ahead of time.”
M1 is part of the Keppel Group, which has a presence in real estate, connectivity and power sectors. Its connectivity business includes telecom, ICT business, data centers and subsea cables. Keppel Group owns and operates 35 data centers in 13 countries. The combination of connectivity, along with data center infrastructure, subsea cables and ICT solutions, gives it a significant advantage.
Interestingly, the company has adopted a fund-based model for its data center business. “It is our fund that invests in creating a data center. It is very important to have customers who are aligned with our way of expansion and building data centers so that we get our customers as quickly as possible as we build our data centers,” explains Mann. In this regard, Keppel has recently signed a strategic framework agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to collaborate on data centers, subsea cables and renewable energy. The group is also developing a floating data center, which will use seawater for cooling.
Singapore’s largest service provider, Singtel, is also expanding its regional presence for its data center business in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
M1 and digital transformation
Regarding domestic operations, Mann shared an update on M1 digital transformation, which was initiated in 2020 to address the growing competition in the market as well as to enhance customer experience and prevent churn.
“Today, all our subscribers are now on the new digital platform. We migrated them from our old technology stack to the new OSS BSS, which is in the cloud. What that does is that it becomes very cost-effective for us, besides making it easier to hyperpersonalize our services. It becomes far easier to do campaigns, tariff promotions, etc, when your subscribers are on a digital platform,” says Mann.
This article was updated on Aug. 12, 2025, at 10:56 a.m. ET, to clarify the relationship between Keppel, M1 and AsiaPac and note that the acquisition of M1 by Simba Telecom is pending Singaporean government approval.