SingTel snaps up Pixable
SINGAPORE, Sept 21 — SingTel said yesterday it has agreed to acquire United States social photo aggregation and discovery platform Pixable for US$26.5 million (RM81.2 million), as part of moves to expand revenue stream and tap opportunities in an increasingly image-centric digital world.
The company is known for its smartphone app that prioritises photos on social networks for consumers.
“People are increasingly using photos to share experiences with their friends and relatives … Our customers want assistance from service providers to prioritise and organise the multiple contacts and content that happen daily in their lives,” said Mr Allen Lew, Chief Executive of SingTel’s Digital Life division.
“We will be able to provide a distinctive value-added service to all mobile customers, allowing them to discover and store content, images and their communication history.”
Pixable, which has four million users on the Web as well as on iOS and Android devices, uses next generation predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to analyse user interactions and consumption habits to prioritise photos from close friends and family.
The New York-based company, which was founded in 2009, had an unaudited net asset value of about US$341,000 as of June 1.
SingTel, South-east Asia’s largest phone company, is expanding its revenue streams amid slowing growth from its main markets in Singapore and Australia, and has announced about US$899 million of acquisitions in the 12 months through June.
The telco, whose largest shareholder is Temasek Holdings, in March also announced a group-wide reorganisation into three product groups — consumer, digital and ICT — in an attempt to transform itself from a traditional home and wireless phone supplier to a multimedia and information-technology services provider. — Today
