The Liberisation of Postal Services in Singapore

Singapore Post has a heritage dating back to 1819, when Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore. It is more than a brand as it is the one and only postage service provider in Singapore for all these years. However, come next year, Singapore Post will no longer hold on to this luxurious monopoly.

Even though SingPost has profitted much from its monopoly, it has not yet achieved high standards globally. With the liberisation of postal services in Singapore, it will inevitably face tough competitors such as SwissPost which ranks top five globally.

A great advantage that SingPost has is that it already has a large infrastructure ready and a system that is working in Singapore. Other competitors would have to start from scratch, thus giving SingPost a time advantage to strategise. As a national brand, it commands a high level of trust and reliability among fellow citizens.

Global competitors have logistical and financial support from their global companies. They can afford to sustain some losses intially, if there are any, and then compete with the dominant service provider to climb up the top spot. They have also the manpower, people with experience, knowledge and skills. Nationalism in Singapore is not that deep enough to resist foreign penetration of postal services.

Will a competition in postal service lead to an eventual loss for all parties and bring it back into a state of monopoly, as for the case of MediaCorp and SPH? Will we lose a national heritage? Liberisation of postal service will eventually bring benefits to the people in terms of competitive pricing and quality of service, if SingPost fails. As far as I am concerned, retaining a national heritage is paramount to all other concerns.