SINGAPORE — Investors have brushed off SingTel’s concerns that losing the cross-carriage appeal for the Barclays Premier League (BPL) coverage could affect its ability to sell other mio TV content to subscribers, lending their support to the red team in a relatively weak day of trading.

Shares in SingTel fell as low as S$3.89 in early trading before gaining traction to finish 0.51 per cent higher at S$3.95, outperforming the benchmark Straits Times Index, which added just 0.03 per cent.

StarHub closed down 0.47 per cent at S$4.26.

While the ruling eliminates SingTel as the only broadcaster for the BPL, analysts say the impact on its business may not be as great as it had feared.

“While we may see some migration of subscribers from mio TV to StarHub’s cable TV platform, we do not expect a huge number,” said Mr Carey Wong, Research Manager at OCBC Investment Research. The house is maintaining its Hold rating on SingTel.

Barclays’ Head of Telecoms, Internet and Media Sector and ASEAN Equity Research Anand Ramachandran agreed, adding that although cross-carriage ruling eliminates a unique differentiator that has helped SingTel ramp up its cable television subscriber share, it might not necessarily have a major impact on the telco.

“SingTel has built up content and scale in the past three years on mio TV, and the ruling should not impact SingTel’s momentum materially,” he said.

Meanwhile, M1 has also taken its own significant step in the content stakes with the launch of its Android set-top box MiBox. The box offers users a selection of free dramas, variety shows and other content, with the service priced at S$8 per month for M1 fibre customers and S$12 per month for non-M1 fibre customers.

Noting that M1 has retained an agnostic view on content so far, Mr Ramachandran said this foray is “interesting”. “M1 is trying to tap a segment of the market that wants pay TV but does not want to pay up. The aggregation of a lot of content into one place is the value-add M1 is offering here.”