As we stand at the start of a new decade, 2020 is significant not only for our company, but also for our society. Industrialisation of break-out technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Industry 4.0 and fifth-generation mobile networks (5G) will accelerate change across businesses, governments, and societies. This will further spur digital transformation that will set the tone for the rest of the century.

The start of the year has been filled with headlines of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), as well as geo-political tensions. These and other emerging issues will likely intensify the macroeconomic challenges over the course of the year.

ST Telemedia’s transforming portfolio towards digital, data and cloud-centric businesses enables us to continue to create value and capitalise on the growth potential. With the benefit of the clarity of our vision and strategy, I am convinced that 2020 will present some compelling opportunities which we can capture.

Eventful 2019

2019 was an action-packed year for STT. We celebrated our 25^th anniversary by reconnecting with our ties and giving back to the community. Business wise, we continued to refine our strategic focus and capabilities while adding on new investments to create value to our ecosystem.

Our communications and media portfolio companies are delivering on their transformation strategies that are focused on enhancing customer experience, pursuing new growth markets and capturing value. Both StarHub and U Mobile have embarked on their 5G trials, including a joint effort to conduct one of the world’s first 5G standalone roaming trials.

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) kept up its growth momentum and significantly strengthened its market position in the geographies where it is present. By the end of 2019, STT GDC had more than 90 data centres in over 16 major global markets on its platform.

We continue to bolster our infrastructure technology (Infratech) portfolio particularly in cybersecurity, analytics and managed cloud services. STT took a majority stake in US-based cloud service provider, 2nd Watch, and increased our shareholding position in Datameer through a US$40 million financing round led by us. We started a new venture in Singapore that is focused on tapping on the growth opportunities in cybersecurity and cloud IT solutions in Asia. Our existing portfolio companies continue to gain industry recognition and grow their market segments through product innovation and market expansion.

Celebrating who we are

Our 25^th anniversary celebration, themed “Spark Tomorrow Together”, included a series of curated events and initiatives that reflected our history; celebrated our employees, both past and present; and gave back to the community. Among the initiatives were the launch of our anniversary website (SparkTomorrowTogether.com) and the completion of 25 do-good CSR initiatives, many of which would not have been possible without the involvement and generosity of our employees.

We also launched our first STT university scholarships at top international institutions and extended the study award agreement for the ST Telemedia Catalyst Award.

Thriving in the new era

STT has achieved remarkable success and delivered value to our stakeholders in the last 25 years. Our success lies not only in the dedicated people at STT, but also those who we work with and supported us on our journey.

As we head into a new phase of our company, I am confident that with the continued strong support of our employees and stakeholders, we can navigate through the challenges, seize new opportunities and achieve our ambition to build leading platforms and Asia-Pacific champions from within our ecosystem.

We recognise the importance of building a thriving ecosystem where sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. In line with STT’s ethos of igniting enduring change to create sustainable long-term value for our stakeholders, we will not only focus on delivering business value, but also pay careful attention to the health of our communities and the environment.