Circles.Life has surged into the Singaporean telecom landscape, marking a notable milestone with a 5% market share as the year closes. Beyond that financial and market achievement, the company is pursuing an expansive blueprint that redefines traditional telco boundaries. A landmark move in this direction is the new partnership with EZ-Link, which opens the Circles.Life app to non-customers, adding a new layer of value through a ride-based rewards economy. The initiative underlines Circles.Life’s ongoing strategy to blend digital services with everyday activities, turning routine transit into a channel for earning rewards and unlocking data-centric benefits. This initial momentum sits alongside a special promotional push that combines generous data offerings with customer-centric incentives, underscoring the company’s broader ambition to reframe how telecom services intersect with daily life.
Circles.Life Achieves 5% Market Share and Expands Its Reach Beyond Traditional Telco Boundaries
Circles.Life has reported reaching a 5% market share in Singapore’s telecom market, marking a significant milestone since its launch in 2016. This achievement is presented as a signal of the company’s rapid growth and its capacity to disrupt conventional telco models. The milestone is more than a number; it signals Circles.Life’s broader strategic shift toward a more inclusive digital service ecosystem. The company emphasizes that this growth is not an endpoint but a platform for continued expansion into non-telco services and integrated digital offerings.
In parallel with the market share news, Circles.Life announced a strategic initiative that transcends the traditional telco boundary. The company opened its app to non-customers through a collaboration with EZ-Link, signaling a move toward an integrated service model where everyday digital experiences—such as commuting—become channels for engaging with Circles.Life. This approach reflects Circles.Life’s evolving blueprint for the telco of the future: a digital, data-driven platform that powers personalized experiences across multiple domains, not just voice and data services. The 5% milestone serves as a catalyst for a broader conversation about how digital telcos can reimagine customer value, loyalty, and cross-service partnerships in a highly connected city-state.
The broader narrative accompanying the 5% landmark emphasizes Circles.Life’s intent to build a scalable, globally relevant digital service framework. While market share is an important indicator of penetration, the accompanying strategy focuses on deepening the customer relationship through innovative features, ecosystem partnerships, and data-driven product design. The company positions itself as a catalyst for change within Singapore’s tech and telecom ecosystem, aiming to translate market momentum into tangible improvements in service personalization, affordability, and everyday convenience. In this light, the 5% benchmark becomes a stepping-stone toward a more expansive, customer-centric digital platform with potential global applicability.
The leadership expresses confidence that this momentum will feed into a longer-term blueprint for the company’s growth. The emphasis remains on developing core technologies, expanding the product and service portfolio, and continuing to empower customers with more control, transparency, and choice. The 5% milestone also dovetails with Circles.Life’s broader mission to “put power back to the customers,” a phrase that captures the company’s aspiration to shift decision-making and value creation closer to those who use the services every day. As the company scales, it asserts that the underlying aim is to deliver not just competitive pricing or better plans, but a richer, more seamless digital experience that integrates with daily life.
Ride for Rewards: Opening Circles.Life to Non-Customers Through EZ-Link
One of the standout moves accompanying Circles.Life’s market momentum is the Ride for Rewards program, a collaboration with EZ-Link that opens the Circles.Life app to non-customers. This marks a significant expansion of Circles.Life’s accessibility, turning a mobile app into a gateway for rewards that are earned through everyday transit activity. Under the program, users earn Life Points for each ride taken on buses or trains when using an EZ-Link card integrated with the Circles.Life app. The Life Points earned through transit activity can be redeemed for vouchers and offers from a wide range of partners, including popular on-demand and e-commerce platforms.
The program’s mechanics are straightforward: non-customers connect their EZ-Link card to the Circles.Life app, enabling the life-point accumulation with every journey. For each ride completed via EZ-Link, participants receive Life Points, which accumulate and can be redeemed for a catalog of rewards. The broad redemption options include vouchers from major retailers and service providers, expanding the value proposition well beyond traditional telecom perks. This approach effectively broadens Circles.Life’s ecosystem by integrating everyday mobility with rewards, while inviting a new segment of users to engage with Circles.Life through a practical, high-utility channel.
The Ride for Rewards initiative is designed as an extension of Circles.Life’s existing Rides Earn Data program. The latter, launched earlier, rewarded Circles.Life customers with data-based incentives tied to EZ-Link interactions. Ride for Rewards expands that concept to non-customers, creating a more inclusive model that integrates transportation habits with digital services. The program reinforces Circles.Life’s vision of a digitally driven ecosystem where everyday activities—like commuting—generate tangible value for users, regardless of whether they already hold a Circles.Life subscription. This inclusive strategy aligns with Circles.Life’s broader aim to democratize access to digital benefits, inviting wider participation and reinforcing brand affinity through practical, day-to-day use cases.
From EZ-Link’s perspective, the partnership is framed as an opportunity to amplify daily usage of EZ-Link in a way that complements Circles.Life’s digital telco approach. The collaboration is positioned as a mutual benefit, where EZ-Link’s transit platform becomes a conduit for enhanced consumer engagement and value creation within Circles.Life’s expanding ecosystem. The collaboration is presented as a proactive step toward a more delightful daily journey—one that aligns with both organizations’ goals of delivering practical, user-friendly experiences that integrate technology with everyday life.
Circles.Life’s leadership frames Ride for Rewards as a natural progression of a broader mission to make the telco experience more personalized and embedded in daily routines. By breaking down the barrier between the telco app and ordinary consumer activities, the company seeks to demonstrate that digital services can be seamlessly woven into people’s routines, thereby increasing everyday utility and adoption. The program’s emphasis on universal participation—extending to non-customers—signals a strategic pivot toward inclusivity and widespread value creation. In practice, the program looks to deliver measurable benefits for users through a simple, familiar mechanism: ride-based rewards that translate into tangible vouchers and discounts across widely used platforms.
Life Points: Earning and Redeeming Across a Growing Rewards Catalogue
Life Points—Circles.Life’s rewards currency—emerge as the central incentive mechanism for both customers and non-customers in the Ride for Rewards ecosystem. Participants accumulate Life Points through EZ-Link-enabled transit activity, and these points can be redeemed for vouchers from well-known partners across on-demand services and e-commerce platforms. The breadth of redemption options underscores Circles.Life’s strategy to create a diverse, appealing rewards catalog that resonates with a wide audience. By linking everyday travel to a broad array of consumer rewards, Life Points become a tangible bridge between mobility and lifestyle benefits, reinforcing user engagement and loyalty across multiple touchpoints.
The redemption framework is designed to be straightforward and transparent, with a catalog that includes vouchers for services people use regularly. The emphasis on a broad partner network ensures that Life Points retain real-world value, encouraging ongoing participation and social sharing of benefits. The program’s design reflects Circles.Life’s data-driven approach to product development: by tracking how users redeem Life Points and which partners drive the greatest engagement, Circles.Life can refine the rewards mix to optimize impact and satisfaction. This dynamic rewards economy supports Circles.Life’s goal of delivering end-to-end value that extends beyond mere price competition, focusing instead on cumulative experiences and practical advantages.
In practice, Life Points functions as a versatile, user-centric currency. The more users participate in the Ride for Rewards program—whether by taking buses or trains with EZ-Link integrated into Circles.Life—the more Life Points accumulate. The price-to-value ratio is designed to be meaningful enough to influence behavior, encouraging repeated participation in the transit-based reward cycle. The Life Points system is also a data-rich instrument for Circles.Life to observe travel patterns, preferences, and engagement levels, enabling the company to tailor future features, promotions, and partnerships to align with customer needs. In essence, Life Points are not merely a reward; they are a lever for deeper engagement with Circles.Life’s evolving digital ecosystem, reinforcing the synergy between daily mobility, data-driven services, and consumer value.
The 12GB for S$28/month Sign-Up Promotion and the 12.12 Year End Special
In parallel with the Ride for Rewards initiatives, Circles.Life promoted a compelling data offer designed to attract new sign-ups while rewarding existing customers. Beginning on a notable date in December, the company advertised 12GB of data for S$28 per month as a limited-time sign-up incentive. The promotion was framed as a Year End Special for 12.12, emphasizing affordability and value for a broad audience of new users and current customers. The offer’s framing as a limited-time event underscored Circles.Life’s intent to create a sense of timely opportunity, driving short-term adoption while reinforcing the brand’s long-term value proposition.
The promotion was positioned as accessible to all new signups and, in a spirit of inclusivity, extended to existing customers as well. The messaging suggested a dual-track approach: lure new customers with a strong data proposition while inviting current users to participate in special offerings that symbolize Circles.Life’s dedication to returning value to the community of users. The 12.12 branding aligned with a broader retail calendar, leveraging consumer enthusiasm for festive deals and year-end promotions. This promotional strategy speaks to Circles.Life’s willingness to blend content-driven campaigns with tangible data-based rewards, reinforcing the value of Digital Telco as a consumer-centric experience.
From a product perspective, the 12GB-for-S$28 offer provides a baseline data quantity designed to satisfy the everyday needs of light-to-moderate data users while leaving room for upsell opportunities through the Circles.Life app’s other features and services. The promotion also complements Ride for Rewards by creating additional incentives for joining and staying within Circles.Life’s ecosystem. For existing customers, the program’s continuation through official channels—while avoiding direct contact details—suggests a controlled approach to customer engagement that emphasizes loyalty and recognition without compromising privacy or compliance guidelines. Overall, the 12GB for S$28/month offer is presented as a practical, high-value option aligned with Circles.Life’s mission to transform the telecom experience through data-centric, user-friendly campaigns.
The broader promotional narrative also ties into Circles.Life’s brand advocacy goals and customer satisfaction metrics. The company’s visibility on YouGov’s rankings and the emphasis on customer empowerment contribute to a perception of Circles.Life as a forward-thinking, consumer-friendly brand. The 12.12 Year End Special embodies Circles.Life’s commitment to delivering tangible, real-world benefits to a diverse audience, reinforcing the company’s ambition to become a globally recognized digital service platform. By combining affordable data options with a broad rewards ecosystem and transit-linked benefits, Circles.Life crafts a multi-pronged promotional strategy designed to sustain growth while deepening user engagement.
YouGov Ranking and the Year-End Special: A Brand Advocacy Perspective
Circles.Life’s position on YouGov’s Singaporean brand advocacy rankings—within the top five—serves as a qualitative indicator of customer sentiment and perceived brand strength. Being recognized among the top five in a national brand advocacy ranking signals that Circles.Life enjoys strong word-of-mouth support and a favorable reputation among consumers. This accolade complements the company’s other strategic moves, including the Ride for Rewards partnership and the 12GB-for-S$28/month promotional offer, reinforcing Circles.Life’s image as a customer-centric, innovation-driven brand.
Linked to the year-end promotions, Circles.Life highlighted its commitment to returning power to the customer, a theme echoed in the company’s broader philosophy of digital telco transformation. The emphasis on advocacy—measured by consumer willingness to recommend and support the brand—complements operational and product initiatives by underscoring the importance of trust and satisfaction in maintaining long-term growth. The Year End Special, positioned as a customer-first initiative, aligns with this advocacy narrative by offering meaningful value to both new entrants and existing customers, thereby reinforcing positive brand sentiment and loyalty.
From a strategic perspective, the YouGov ranking provides a benchmark for Circles.Life’s positioning in a competitive market. It suggests that the company’s multi-faceted approach—combining innovative digital telco features, broad ecosystem partnerships, and compelling data-based promotions—is resonating with a broad audience. The combination of high-visibility campaigns and a strong advocacy ranking helps Circles.Life differentiate itself in a crowded market and supports its efforts to attract new customers while retaining current ones. As Circles.Life continues to expand the scope of its digital services, the brand advocacy momentum could become a critical driver of future growth, particularly as it scales operations and enters new markets.
The broader communications strategy around the Year End Special also underscores a commitment to accessible and customer-oriented value propositions. By offering a substantial data package at an affordable price and linking it to a well-regarded rewards ecosystem, Circles.Life reinforces its narrative of empowerment and practical benefits. Customers can expect ongoing emphasis on value-driven promotions, personalized experiences, and a focus on delivering digital services that fit naturally into daily life. The YouGov ranking, the Year End Special, and the Ride for Rewards program collectively illustrate Circles.Life’s integrated approach to brand-building, customer engagement, and service innovation.
2019 Blueprint: Digital Telco, Data Platforms, and an AI-Driven Ecosystem
Looking forward to 2019, Circles.Life outlined a bold blueprint aimed at evolving from a telco provider into a globally relevant, digitally driven service platform. The core strategies center on three foundational pillars: a digital telco framework that reimagines customer empowerment, a robust digital data platform, and a growing digital ecosystem that leverages artificial intelligence to deliver personalized services and lifestyle products.
Digital Telco: The company positions itself as a pioneer in a new generation of telco where customer autonomy and digital simplicity define the experience. Circles.Life’s Circles-X technology automates end-to-end telco systems to deliver a seamless, highly customizable digital experience for users. The emphasis on automation, efficiency, and user-centric design reflects the aspiration to reduce friction and increase transparency in how customers manage their mobile services. This approach aims to shift the focus from traditional network-centric offerings to customer-centric experiences that are powered by advanced technology.
Digital Data Platform: As part of its data-driven strategy, Circles.Life announced the opening of a data innovation center in Bangalore, starting with a team of 25 employees and planning to grow to 50 in the first quarter of 2019. The Bangalore center will work in close collaboration with the Singapore team to build a comprehensive data platform that enables more personalized and insightful digital services. The company commits to substantial investment—up to a defined budget—to support long-term, sustainable growth. The data platform initiative signals Circles.Life’s intention to harness big data, advanced analytics, and machine learning to tailor offerings, optimize operations, and unlock new revenue streams.
Digital Ecosystem: The broader digital ecosystem strategy focuses on leveraging Circles.Life’s telco technology foundation to deliver AI-driven services and digital lifestyle products. The company envisions expanding its service portfolio beyond telecom into areas such as transit, payments, and other aspects of daily life, with an emphasis on personalization and cross-product integration. This approach includes a plan to scale the model internationally, with additional country expansions anticipated in 2019. The AI-driven emphasis implies a shift toward automation, predictive insights, and proactive customer engagement, with the aim of enhancing user experiences and creating new avenues for growth.
In this blueprint, Circles.Life aims to transform into a platform that supports a continuum of digital services rather than a single product line. The emphasis on innovation, data, and AI suggests a long-term strategy to build a scalable, globally relevant ecosystem. The goal is to empower customers by giving them more meaningful control, more relevant recommendations, and easier access to a broad spectrum of digital services that complement telecommunications. This strategic direction is designed to sustain momentum beyond 2019, laying the groundwork for continuous adaptation as technology and consumer expectations evolve.
Beyond Telco: Rides Earn Data and the EZ-Link Collaboration as a Growth Engine
Circles.Life’s strategy extends beyond traditional telecommunications by creating cross-domain value through strategic partnerships and innovative customer experiences. The Rides Earn Data program, launched in May 2018, rewarded Circles.Life’s telco customers with data credits—specifically 100 MB for every 10 rides taken with EZ-Link. Building on that success, the Ride for Rewards program expands the concept to include non-customers, enabling a broader audience to earn Life Points through EZ-Link-enabled transit. This expansion signals Circles.Life’s intent to convert daily activities into data-driven value, reinforcing its position as a digital telco that integrates transportation with data services.
The EZ-Link collaboration is framed as a mutual enabler of everyday convenience and consumer delight. EZ-Link’s leadership highlighted the program’s alignment with their mission of making daily journeys a delightful experience, while Circles.Life emphasized the potential to elevate customer engagement and satisfaction through practical, everyday actions. The partnership illustrates how a telco can partner with an established daily-use platform to create a richer user experience, where habitual behavior—such as commuting—translates into tangible benefits and data-driven insights.
From Circles.Life’s perspective, these efforts illustrate a broader commitment to experiential value. The Rides Earn Data and Ride for Rewards programs are not isolated promotions; they are components of an ecosystem designed to reward consistent usage, encourage loyalty, and demonstrate the real-world utility of digital telco offerings. The programs are designed to be scalable, with the potential to incorporate additional transit networks, reward partners, and data-driven features as Circles.Life expands its footprint globally. The strategic emphasis is clear: to situate Circles.Life not merely as a mobile service provider but as a platform that integrates daily life activities into a coherent, data-powered experience.
Leadership Vision: From Founders to Executives — Shaping a Customer-Centric Digital Telco
The leadership at Circles.Life has consistently framed the company’s evolution as a deliberate shift toward more personalized, customer-first digital services. Co-Founder perspectives highlight a deliberate move to empower users with greater control, transparency, and choice through technology. The Circles.X platform is presented as a cornerstone of this vision, automating core telco processes to deliver a streamlined, user-friendly experience. The emphasis on customer empowerment reflects a broader industry trend toward consumer-centric approaches, where technology serves as a facilitator of convenience, customization, and value.
Conversations around the EZ-Link partnership and Ride for Rewards frequently reference the importance of everyday value. The company’s leadership stresses that the aim is not only to attract new users but also to deepen loyalty by delivering practical benefits that resonate with daily routines. The involvement of EZ-Link’s leadership in the dialogue reinforces the collaborative spirit of Circles.Life’s expansion strategy, underscoring the potential for cross-industry partnerships to unlock new value and accelerate adoption. The leadership narrative emphasizes long-term resilience, sustainable growth, and a commitment to building a digital telco ecosystem that remains relevant as consumer expectations continue to evolve.
In parallel, the EZ-Link CEO comments reflect optimism about the collaboration’s potential to enhance everyday experiences and to contribute to Circles.Life’s mission. The dialogue between Circles.Life and EZ-Link signals a shared belief in the value of integrating digital services with common consumer activities—like commuting—where consistent usage can yield meaningful rewards. This synergy aligns with Circles.Life’s broader objectives to deliver high-value, contextually relevant services that feel effortless to use and deeply integrated into daily life. The leadership narratives together frame a future where telco services are more than connectivity—they are gateways to a richer digital lifestyle supported by intelligent data ecosystems.
About Circles.Life: A Fully Digital Telco Built on Automation, Data, and Personalization
Circles.Life positions itself as a fully digital telco built on cloud-based operations and Circles-X technology. The company’s business model centers on automating telco systems to reduce operational costs and to deliver a highly customizable mobile service that users can manage through a dedicated app. Since its commercial launch in 2016, Circles.Life has grown rapidly to become one of Singapore’s fastest-growing telcos, leveraging data and technology to improve not just telecom, but multiple verticals including transit and payments. The core philosophy is to empower customers by giving them control over how they use mobile services, while delivering personalized, data-driven experiences that align with individual needs and preferences.
Circles.Life emphasizes a cost-optimization narrative, with automation aimed at driving efficiency and lowering barriers to entry for new customers. The platform is designed to enable flexible plans, transparent pricing, and a seamless user journey across device types and geographies. The company’s broader mission is to unlock the potential of the regional digital economy by applying sophisticated data analytics, machine learning, and AI to tailor offerings, anticipate customer needs, and deliver value across multiple sectors. The ultimate goal is to transform telecom into a holistic digital service that integrates connectivity with experiences, mobility, and commerce, thereby delivering a more cohesive and compelling consumer proposition.
The organizational strategy includes a targeted global expansion plan, with the intent to replicate Singapore’s digital telco model in new markets. The Circles.Life platform is built to scale, leveraging a cloud-based architecture and an agile product development culture that supports rapid iteration, experimentation, and responsive customer feedback. The combination of Circles-X automation, a robust data platform, and a growing ecosystem of digital services positions Circles.Life as a forward-looking player in the next generation of telecoms—one that emphasizes personalization, transparency, and genuine consumer value.
Circles.Life also highlights its commitment to customer satisfaction as a core performance metric. The company showcases notable customer sentiment indicators and adoption rates, emphasizing positive experiences, trust, and satisfaction as critical drivers of growth. The 5% market share milestone, the top-tier brand advocacy recognition, and the broad adoption of rides-based rewards all contribute to a narrative of a company that is not merely selling data plans but delivering a broader, value-rich digital experience. This positioning supports a broader ambition: to be a globally relevant digital service platform that extends beyond telecom into the daily life of customers through data-enabled, AI-powered, and ecosystem-driven services.
Conclusion
Circles.Life’s 2018 trajectory reflects a deliberate strategy to redefine what a telco can be in a digital era. Achieving a 5% market share, expanding access through the Ride for Rewards program with EZ-Link, and launching data-rich promotions illustrate a coordinated push to blend mobility, data, and lifestyle services into a single, attractive ecosystem. The company’s progress toward 2019 and beyond centers on building a scalable digital telco engine—one that uses Circles-X automation, a cloud-based data platform, and an AI-driven ecosystem to deliver personalized experiences at scale. The YouGov brand advocacy ranking reinforces that Circles.Life’s approach is resonating with consumers, validating its commitment to customer empowerment and value-driven growth. As Circles.Life continues to extend its reach beyond traditional telco boundaries, the core message remains clear: digital telco is not a narrow product category but a holistic platform designed to enrich daily life through data, services, and meaningful rewards. The Ride for Rewards program, together with the year-end promotions and the ongoing data and AI initiatives, underscores Circles.Life’s ambition to create a future where connectivity, mobility, and digital services work seamlessly together to enhance the customer experience across Singapore and beyond.
