Singapore Telecommunications : Singtel, DBS attract record number of firms in third annual 99% SME Shopping Week

More than 5,500 SMEs participating in this year's event

Singapore, 24 October, 2017 - Singtel and DBS today gave small and medium enterprises (SMEs) another boost by kicking off Singapore's only annual shopping event to rally support for SMEs' businesses. The third edition of the 99% SME Shopping Week was officially launched by the Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Sim Ann in the HDB heartlands at Toa Payoh Central.

This year's island wide event drew a record number of participants of more than 5,500 SMEs, more than doubling last year's number of 2,600. The ten-day event allows consumers in Singapore to enjoy fabulous in-store and online offers and discounts from Friday, 20 October to Sunday, 29 October.

'The growing interest of SMEs to embrace digitalisation reflects the importance of transforming brick and mortar enterprises as traditional businesses face the risk of getting disrupted by innovative technologies,' said Mr Andrew Lim, Managing Director, Business Group, Group Enterprise at Singtel. 'This unique event helps to connect SMEs across Singapore so that collectively, we help them to achieve a higher level of consumer awareness and visibility.

'With the advent of the digital economy and online shopping, SMEs can harness the resources of the 99% SME movement to transform and digitalise their operations for greater productivity and market reach. Through the event, SMEs can leverage the marketing resources of the 99% SME movement partners and experience the benefit of going online to complement their brick-and-mortar stores,' he added.

Ms Joyce Tee, Group Head of SME Banking, DBS Bank said: 'SMEs are the backbone of the Singapore economy and they are always inspired to innovate for practical reasons as consumption patterns change. In recent years, they have been adopting e-commerce and cashless payment solutions to offer their shoppers greater ease of payment and a better shopping experience. DBS is delighted to help SMEs widen their customer reach by co-marketing their products and services to the Bank's customers. This in-turn allows SMEs to tap into Singapore's largest customer base and DBS' customers to benefit from unparalleled discounts only found online during the 99%SME campaign.'

Shoppers who spend every $20 with a participating company during the 99% SME Shopping Week will get a chance to enter a lucky draw. The top prize is a pair of flight tickets to Tokyo. Other attractive prizes include the latest Samsung gadgets, Huawei smart watch and shopping credits worth up to $100 on the 99% SME eMarketplace, an e-commerce site is hosted by online retailer Lazada. Singtel post-paid mobile subscribers will also enjoy one gigabyte (1GB) of data for a month when they spend a minimum of $9.90 at any participating SME.

The treats are not limited to shoppers. Mediacorp, the official media partner of 99% SME Shopping Week, announced that three SMEs will each receive an advertising grant of $100,000 for garnering the most number of likes on its Toggle digital entertainment service since June. The three SMEs are the Cat & The Fiddle cake shop, On Cheong jewellery shop and San Seng household goods wholesaler.

The 99% SME Shopping Week is organised by the 99% SME movement, co-founded by Singtel and DBS. Since its inception in 2015, the movement has been gaining traction and this year added new partners like AXA Insurance, Brother, Far East, Google, Huawei, Lazada, Mastercard and Samsung. The group also counts SPRING Singapore, industry associations, grassroots organisations and polytechnic schools among its supporters.

Building E-commerce Capabilities

The 99% SME Shopping Week caps a year-long series of initiatives to help SMEs transform and digitalise their operations. One of these was Singtel's partnership with Temasek Polytechnic to help SMEs in traditional trades go online and use digital technology. The polytechnic's business students have helped more than 150 SMEs to go online, establish e-commerce capabilities and market themselves more effectively.

One of the beneficiaries was Singapore's oldest Chinese restaurant, Spring Court, established in 1929. The students helped the third generation of the founding family to list their offerings on the 99% SME portal to engage a new base of online customers.

Singtel also partnered Nanyang Polytechnic - Singapore Institute of Retail Studies (SIRS) to help SMEs hire digital professionals. This collaboration also benefits the digital professionals as they gain re-employment and be reskilled for the digital economy. To date, about 500 SMEs have registered their interest to hire digital professionals to help them manage their digital transformation.

Beyond getting SMEs online, Singtel has partnered online retailer Lazada to create the 99% SME e-marketplace for SMEs to engage in e-commerce. About 400 SMEs have registered on the e-marketplace through 99% SME movement.

For SMEs participating in the 99% SME Shopping Week, Singtel has conducted 25 workshops where more than 700 SMEs have learnt to leverage infocomm technology solutions, online marketing and cyber security to operate safely in the digital domain.

For more information on the participating SMEs in the 99% SME Shopping Week, please visit www.99sme.sg.

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