New telco tech R&D centre to fuel growth of Circles-X as the world’s premier SaaS platform for telcos
Establishing another pillar of deep-tech in Singapore for a global industry
Creates 120 locally-based ICT jobs in software engineering, cybersecurity, AI and more
Circles (https://circles.co/), the fastest growing tech firm in the telco industry, today announced the launch of its Circles-X R&D Centre in Singapore. With continued support from the Ministry of Communications and Information and Digital Industry Singapore, a joint office by EDB, ESG, and IMDA, this one-of-a-kind telco tech R&D centre — the most advanced in the world — will help drive Circles’ ambition to become the first trillion-dollar global SaaS company, right here in Singapore.
Bringing the power of Singapore deep tech to the world stage
The Circles-X R&D Centre will blend three aspects — cutting-edge made-in-Singapore tech, a core of top local talent nurtured by the best leadership team in Asia, and real-life market experience gleaned from Circles’ owned and partner operations in Asia-Pacific.
The centre will further build on the strengths of the company’s proprietary cloud native, full stack telco operating system (Circles-X OS: CXOS) and enhance its position as the world’s leading telco SaaS platform.
These three aspects are critical to overcoming what Kearney terms the “trillion-dollar” problem plaguing the global telco industry. In a nutshell, traditional telcos worldwide are losing market share and revenue to internet companies and need to catch up on the right tech and capabilities for the future of connectivity. In fact, despite the rapid digitalisation of global economies, traditional telcos have been struggling to keep up with their digital-native competitors for years, according to McKinsey.
As the first 100% digital telco in Singapore launched in 2016, Circles — powered by CXOS — was able to address this changing customer need for agile telco offerings and always-on customer support, leading it to achieve market-leading ARPU and growth, consistently achieving NPS of 50+ and 4.8+ app rating score. Having pioneered this successful blueprint for disrupting the telco space through tech and innovation, Circles has since replicated its model and created game-changing experiences for digital natives in Taiwan and Australia by launching its own consumer operations and digital telco Circles.Life there. In addition, Circles has extended its SaaS offering to enable well-recognised telcos like KDDI in Japan and XL Axiata in Indonesia to launch digital brands using the CXOS platform.
The key to Circles’ success is its CXOS platform, an end-to-end, fully-SaaS stack that enables legacy telcos to leapfrog their digital limitations. The platform empowers telcos to deliver superior customer experiences and digital services (such as insurance, payments and lifestyle offerings) — at a fraction of the time and the cost it would normally take — and achieve full control over the entire customer lifecycle. The successful rollout of povo2.0 with KDDI in Japan last year and launch of Live.On for XL Axiata in 2020 demonstrate the strength of CXOS and the company’s telco SaaS offering. This year, Circles has set its sights on expanding into additional global markets including Asia and Europe, while deepening its success in its existing markets.