Singapore, 15 January 2018 – Following a successful two-year collaboration, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and StarHub today announced the renewal and deepening of their strategic partnership for a further two-year term. The two companies will continue their tie-up in advertising sales, content creation and distribution, data analytics, and marketing. In addition, further collaboration will be explored in new areas such as healthcare, retail and education.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the partnership renewal was signed this afternoon in StarHub Green by Chief Executive Officer of SPH, Mr Ng Yat Chung, and Chief Executive Officer of StarHub, Mr Tan Tong Hai.
Mr Ng said: “It has been a fruitful partnership with StarHub for the past two years as we capitalised on our synergies as media owners to improve our product offerings and grow our customer base. Our renewal of this strategic partnership will enable us to continue to leverage on each other’s strengths and channels to create new business opportunities for both companies, as well as benefit consumers in Singapore.”
Mr Tan said: “In today's marketplace, partnerships are the key to businesses gaining an edge in delighting customers and opening opportunities. This renewal not only underlines our shared commitment to delivering richer content and experiences to our customers, it also takes our partnership to the next level by breaking new ground in non-media collaboration.”
Unlocking a new dimension to the partnership is a desire to jointly create services in sectors other than the media industry. This includes the provision of StarHub’s connectivity and digital solutions to SPH and its affiliates such as Orange Valley Healthcare and Han Language Centre. The two companies will also explore collaborations on solutions in relation to connected buildings, the Internet of Things and smart retail.
The strategic partnership has combined SPH’s extensive sales team and StarHub’s content and distribution platforms to offer integrated multi-platform advertising packages to the market. With the renewal, the two will continue working to develop omnipresent branding opportunities for advertisers across TV, print, out-of-home, radio, mobile and digital media.
The two companies have also broadcast and promoted SPH-produced current affairs, entertainment and lifestyle content across StarHub’s pay TV service. These include programmes such as “Ministerial Coffee Talk”, “Zaobao Keywords”, “Zaobao Micro Film – Pa’s Expressions” and “It Matters – The Future of Us”. Moving forward, SPH content will be extended to StarHub’s online streaming service, StarHub Go, to deepen customer engagement. StarHub will also cross-carry and promote content with SPH’s existing radio stations – Kiss92, UFM100.3 and OneFM 91.3 – and two new radio stations, Money FM 89.3 and 96.3 Hao FM.
Over the course of the partnership, cross-promotional initiatives have met with success and will continue to be rolled out. For instance, subscription drives which bundled SPH newspapers such as The Business Times and Lianhe Zaobao with StarHub’s online streaming service, StarHub Go, were well-received by readers. Marketing efforts will now be extended to include joint outreach events as well as rewards initiatives.
Harnessing the strengths of two major media owners, the MOU formalising the strategic partnership between SPH and StarHub was first signed on 7 March 2016. SPH is Asia’s leading media organisation with businesses in print and digital media. It also owns other digital products, online classifieds, radio stations and outdoor media. StarHub is a fully-integrated info-communications company, offering a full range of information, communications and entertainment services for both consumer and corporate markets. This includes a mobile network which provides 4G and 3G services and an island-wide hybrid fiber-coaxial network which delivers pay TV services as well as ultra-high speed residential broadband services.