MyRepublic, Australian telco TPG Telecom and a newly formed company, airYotta, have submitted bids to be Singapore's fourth mobile service provider.
Those expressions of interest show that “three and four” are the most important numbers in the mobile business.
The former represents a number of competitors often deemed by regulators to be insufficient to deliver competitive benefits, while the latter figure represents the minimum number often believed to be necessary to obtain the desired competitive benefits.
In Japan and South Korea, regulators have been unsuccessful in their efforts to encourage market entry of a third provider. In other markets, regulators have denied mergers that would have reduced the leading contenders in a market from four to three.
In Italy, the European Union competition ministry has agreed to permit a merger between The Wind Telecomunicazioni, owned by VimpelCom, and CK Hutchison subsidiary 3 Italia.
Although the deal would have reduced the Italian mobile sector from four players to three, the merger is contingent on Wind and 3 Italia selling spectrum and physical assets to French firm Iliad, allowing Illiad to enter the market, keeping the number of leading providers at four.
EC competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the deal was approved because Hutchison and VimpelCom will surrender assets allowing a new mobile network operator to enter the Italian market.
Vestager earlier in 2016 had blocked a merger between U.K. providers Three and O2 that would have reduced the number of leading providers to three.
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