Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) has spent 2025 giving investors a very “telecom-utility-meets-digital-infrastructure” storyline: steadier core earnings, bigger dividends, and a widening exposure to data centres—while its Australian unit Optus keeps generating headlines for all the wrong reasons. As of Dec 20, 2025 (a Saturday, when SGX is closed), Singtel stock is being priced as a hybrid: a regional telco with meaningful stakes in fast-growing associates and a growing digital infrastructure platform, but still carrying Optus execution and regulatory overhang. [1]
Singtel share price today: where the stock stands (Dec 20, 2025)
Singtel last traded on Friday, Dec 19, 2025, closing at S$4.54 (up 0.22% on the day), with S$4.53–S$4.58 as the session range and about 16.9 million shares traded, according to SGInvestors’ SGX data snapshot. [2]
That price level matters because it sits at the intersection of two narratives:
- A re-rating story driven by associates (notably Bharti Airtel) and data centres, and
- A risk story dominated by Optus reliability incidents and potential penalties.
What’s driving Singtel stock in late 2025
1) Optus emergency-call outage review: the most market-sensitive headline this week
The biggest near-term swing factor isn’t Singapore mobile pricing or fibre—it’s Optus.
An independent review into Optus’ Sep 18, 2025 “Triple Zero” emergency-calls outage found serious gaps in process, accountability, and incident response, and pointed to failures during a firewall upgrade (including incorrect instructions and mistakes across Optus and contractor workflows). Reuters reported the outage lasted nearly 14 hours and that roughly three-quarters of affected emergency calls did not connect, with the review making 21 recommendations that Optus has accepted. [3]
From an investor perspective, the financial impact is hard to model precisely because it’s not just about remediation spending—it’s about whether regulators impose penalties, what operational changes cost, and whether customer churn ticks up in a competitive market.
2) Another Optus outage in December, adding “reliability premium” pressure
On Dec 4, 2025, Reuters reported Optus restored NBN services after an outage affecting around 95,000 customers in Brisbane and parts of Queensland, attributed to a network server failure. Optus said emergency “000” services and the mobile network were not impacted in that incident. [4]
Even when outages don’t hit emergency calling, they reinforce the market’s worry that Optus will need sustained, higher spend to rebuild resilience—potentially squeezing margins and slowing any valuation recovery.
3) Singapore regulator fine: Singtel fined S$1 million over a 2024 outage
Back in Singapore, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) imposed a S$1 million financial penalty on Singtel on Dec 11, 2025 for an Oct 8, 2024 fixed voice disruption that affected about 500,000 residential and corporate users for more than four hours, impacting access to various customer service lines and emergency call services. Singtel said it accepted the ruling and penalty. [5]
The fine itself is not existential. The signal is reputational and operational: regulators are increasingly intolerant of “single points of failure” in critical communications infrastructure.
Earnings, guidance, and what management is signalling
Singtel’s latest major financial checkpoint—its H1 FY26 results—helped explain why the stock had momentum into year-end.
Reuters reported that Singtel posted S$1.35 billion underlying net profit for the six months ended Sep 30, 2025 (up about 14% year-on-year) and declared an interim dividend of 8.2 Singapore cents per share. Crucially, Singtel also raised its FY2026 operating-company (OpCo) earnings guidance, saying OpCo EBIT is expected to grow between high single digits and low double digits, and highlighted that Nxera’s EBITDA is expected to grow at more than 20% annually over the next four years as new data centre capacity comes online. [6]
The Business Times added colour on the H1 print: headline net profit was boosted by exceptional items, while operating metrics at units such as Optus and NCS improved—though Optus cost pressures related to the Triple Zero incident were already being flagged by management as a second-half headwind. [7]
Dividend: why income investors are paying attention again
Singtel has been leaning hard into shareholder returns, and the interim dividend shows it.
Singtel’s investor-relations dividend table reflects an FY2026 interim core dividend of 6.4 cents plus a value realisation dividend of 1.8 cents, totaling 8.2 cents for the interim payout. [8]
That “value realisation” label is not cosmetic—it ties directly into Singtel’s asset recycling program (more on that below). For dividend-focused investors, the key question is sustainability: can Singtel keep funding distributions while also investing aggressively in data centres and digital infrastructure?
Asset recycling and Bharti Airtel: the cash engine behind the strategy
Singtel’s latest Airtel stake sale (Nov 2025)
In one of the most important 2025 catalysts for Singtel shares, Reuters reported that on Nov 7, 2025, Singtel sold a 0.8% stake in India’s Bharti Airtel for about S$1.5 billion, via its unit Pastel, reducing Singtel’s stake to 27.5% (down from 31.4% in 2022). Reuters said the sale was part of Singtel’s S$9 billion mid-term asset recycling programme, and estimated a gain of S$1.1 billion from the transaction. [9]
This matters to Singtel stock in two ways:
- It funds investment into higher-growth infrastructure (data centres, cloud-adjacent platforms).
- It compresses the holding company discount when investors believe capital is being redeployed efficiently and dividends can grow.
Data centres: Nxera expansion and the STT GDC “mega-deal” optionality
The strategic bet: re-rating Singtel through digital infrastructure
DBS framed Singtel’s 2025 run-up as a re-rating story and argued the stock could further re-rate if data centre scale ramps and Singapore mobile pricing stabilises. In a Dec 11, 2025 note, DBS said Singtel’s share price had risen roughly 45% in 2025, and that it expected Singtel’s core business to re-rate from about 5x forward EV/EBITDA toward the regional average of 7x, citing catalysts including doubling data centre capacity in early 2026 and a potential stabilisation in Singapore mobile ARPU (average revenue per user) around mid-2026. [10]
That’s not a guarantee—just an analyst framework—but it captures why the market increasingly treats Singtel as more than a traditional telco.
STT GDC buyout talks: could be a defining deal
Reuters reported that KKR and Singtel were in advanced talks to buy more than 80% of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) for over S$5 billion (US$3.9 billion)—a move that would give them full ownership—though Reuters emphasized there was no certainty the talks would result in a binding deal. [11]
If this transaction progresses, it could materially change Singtel’s “digital infra” profile, potentially lifting the group’s growth multiple—while also increasing execution and financing complexity.
Singtel stock forecast: analyst targets and market consensus (Dec 20, 2025)
Analyst forecasts for Singtel stock are broadly constructive, though not euphoric.
- SGInvestors’ compilation of recent broker targets shows a range of S$4.86 to S$5.75, with a median target of S$5.14 (about 13% upside from around S$4.54). [12]
- MarketScreener’s consensus snapshot shows 17 analysts with an average target around S$5.19, with a high estimate of S$6.20 and a low estimate of S$4.36—implying the market sees upside, but with meaningful dispersion. [13]
- Investing.com’s consensus estimates similarly cite an average target around S$5.19 from 17 analysts, also showing a wide high-low band. [14]
The practical takeaway: the Street’s base case looks like “moderate upside” rather than “to the moon,” with the main debate being how much value to assign to data centres versus how much risk to subtract for Optus.
The risk checklist investors can’t ignore
Optus: operational, regulatory, and legal overhang
Even if Singtel’s Singapore business is stable, Optus can dominate sentiment:
- The Dec 2025 emergency-calls outage review highlights process and cultural issues and raises the probability of ongoing remediation costs and regulatory scrutiny. [15]
- Reuters has also reported earlier in 2025 on Optus-related legal and regulatory pressure, including Australia’s privacy regulator suing Optus over the 2022 data breach. [16]
Execution risk in data centres (especially if STT GDC deal advances)
Scaling data centre capacity—particularly AI-ready facilities—requires capital, power access, and operational excellence. A large acquisition can accelerate scale, but also raises integration and financing risk. Reuters’ reporting on the STT GDC talks makes clear the transaction is sizable and not yet certain. [17]
FX and “holding company math”
Singtel’s portfolio spans multiple currencies and listed associates. That creates diversification—but also means valuation can swing with exchange rates and the market value of associates, a dynamic DBS explicitly tied to Singtel’s 2025 share performance. [18]
What to watch next for Singtel shares heading into 2026
Going into the new year, the stock’s direction is likely to be set by a few concrete signposts:
- Optus follow-through: implementation of the review recommendations, any penalties, and whether network reliability improves (or headlines keep coming). [19]
- STT GDC deal clarity: whether talks move to a binding agreement and on what financing terms. [20]
- Evidence of Nxera scaling: management has pointed to strong growth expectations for the digital infrastructure arm; investors will want proof in contracted capacity, utilisation, and earnings momentum. [21]
- Dividend trajectory: whether Singtel can keep growing dividends while funding its infrastructure build-out, consistent with how it frames asset recycling and capital management. [22]
Singtel stock in late 2025 is basically a philosophical argument in share form: Can a legacy telco re-rate into a digital infrastructure compounder while keeping the network lights on everywhere it operates? If 2026 brings data centre scale and fewer Optus “incident” headlines, the bullish thesis gets cleaner. If not, the valuation discount will keep insisting on its rightful existence.
References
1. sginvestors.io, 2. sginvestors.io, 3. www.reuters.com, 4. www.reuters.com, 5. www.channelnewsasia.com, 6. www.reuters.com, 7. www.businesstimes.com.sg, 8. www.singtel.com, 9. www.reuters.com, 10. www.dbs.com.sg, 11. www.reuters.com, 12. sginvestors.io, 13. www.marketscreener.com, 14. www.investing.com, 15. www.reuters.com, 16. www.reuters.com, 17. www.reuters.com, 18. www.dbs.com.sg, 19. www.reuters.com, 20. www.reuters.com, 21. www.reuters.com, 22. www.singtel.com
