KPN — BrandWiki

KPN

Overview

Koninklijke KPN N.V.

type	Public
traded as	AEX component
industry	Telecommunications
foundation	1752 (as Statenpost) 1893 (as PTT-NL) January 1, 1989 (corporatised)
location	Rotterdam, Netherlands
key people	Joost Farwerck (CEO) Duco Sickinghe (chairman of the supervisory board)
products	Landline Mobile Telephony Internet Digital Terrestrial Television IT services IPTV
revenue	€5.283 billion (2020) ‡R1R‡
operating income	€912 million (2020) ‡R1R‡
net income	€561 million (2020) ‡R1R‡
assets	€12.080 billion (2020) ‡R1R‡
equity	€2.622 billion (2020) ‡R1R‡
owner	América Móvil (16.08%) Franklin Mutual Series Funds (4.99%) BlackRock (3.83%) Norges Bank (2.91%)
num employees	10,102 (FTE, 2020) ‡R1R‡
brands	Ortel Mobile Simyo XS4ALL
subsid	Cam IT Solutions Solcon RoutIT
homepage	kpn.com

Koninklijke KPN N.V. (Royal KPN N.V. in English), trading as KPN is a Dutch telecommunications company. KPN originated from a government-run postal, telegraph and telephone service and is based in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

History

Until 1998

What is now KPN was first officially established as a postal service called the Statenpost in 1752. In 1799, Dutch postal services were reformed into a single, national system, and in 1807, was placed under the administration of the Ministry of Finance. In 1893, postal system and telegraph and telephone services were brought together to form the Staatsbedrijf der Posterijen, Telegrafie en Telefonie (approximately, “National corporation for Postage, Telegraphy and Telephony”), shortened to PTT or internationally as PTT-NL, under the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce.[2][3]

Around a hundred years later, post codes were introduced in the Netherlands in 1977, which allowed full automation of the postal system. On 1 January 1989, the PTT was corporatised and reorganised as a private business known as Koninklijke PTT Nederland (“Royal PTT Netherlands”), shortened to KPN or PTT Nederland.

Since 1998

In 2001 KPN tried to merge with the Belgian telco Belgacom.[5] It did not succeed because of the objections of the Belgian government.[6] In 2001, Spanish Telefonica expressed an interest in buying KPN.[7]

The Japanese mobile telephone company NTT DoCoMo holds a 2% stake in KPN Mobile NV. From 2002 until 2007 KPN Mobile provided i-mode services on its mobile phone networks. i-mode as introduced by KPN's E-Plus in Germany in March 2002 and by KPN Mobile The Netherlands in April 2002 was the first mobile Internet service in Europe (ahead of Vodafone's V-live).

KPN partly owned KPNQwest, a telecommunications company equally owned by KPN and the American Qwest Communications International. The company was set to bring together the state-of-the-art fibre-optic networks of the two partners and the Internet services expertise and customer base of EUnet International. The company collapsed in a bankruptcy in 2002.

KPN also has operational synergies through joint ventures with TDC and Swisscom.[8]

In 2007 KPN acquired Getronics N.V., a worldwide ICT services company with more than 22,000 employees, and almost doubled its former size. KPN has divested parts of Getronics that didn't meet their core interests for example in 2008 they sold a Dutch department of Getronics named Business Application Services (BAS) to CapGemini for about €250,000,000.[9]

In August 2013, América Móvil offered to take over the remaining 70% stake of the Dutch telecommunications company for 7.2 billion Euros ($9.49 billion). América Móvil currently owns close to 30% of KPN. The Dutch Government has issued a warning on this proposed takeover of KPN by Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim, as part of his ambition to expand his telecom empire.[10] The plans eventually ended when the "Stichting Preferente Aandelen B KPN" exercised a call option to gain ~50% of the total shares, in order to put up a temporary protection wall against the hostile takeover.

In November 2020, EQT AB offered to take over KPN for 11 billion Euros. Further in April 2021 EQT AB and Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners jointly started work on a KPN takeover bid for 12.5 billion Euros.[11]

On 10 June 2021, a fiber-optic joint venture called Glaspoort and based in Amsterdam was established, a partnership between KPN and pension fund APG to expand the supply of fiber. Glaspoort plans to connect some 750,000 households and about 225,000 businesses to fiber which will require an investment of over €1 billion over the next five years.[12]

Operations

Most of KPN's operations are in the Dutch telecommunication market.

In the 2000s and early 2010s, KPN had multiple subsidiaries in European countries such as Belgium, Germany and France. Most of these international operations were sold off in the 2010s.

Netherlands

In the Dutch telephone market, KPN is the owner of the fixed telephone operations network (though its sales monopoly on the fixed network ended in 2007) and is the market leader in mobile network operator (MNO) under its own brand name and as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) under the brand name Simyo. Defunct mobile subsidiaries include Hi, Telfort and Ortel Mobile.[21]

In the Internet market, KPN provides Internet service under the KPN brand name. Defunct subsidiary providers include XS4ALL, Telfort, Planet Internet, Het Net, Freeler, Speedlinq, HCCNet, Demon Netherlands.

In 2004, KPN also started offering digital terrestrial television in the Netherlands as part of its multi-play services via its subsidiary Digitenne. Since 1 May 2006, KPN offers Interactive Television, an IPTV service based on their DSL service, with the ability to receive video on demand and replay your missed TV episodes besides regular TV programming.

KPN Retail is a Dutch subsidiary that owns retail stores branded KPN Winkel.

From 1990 until 2002, KPN was the title sponsor of the Dutch Eredivisie, and since the season 2017/18 the main sponsor.

Belgium

In Belgium, KPN formerly owned mobile provider Base. In 2015, it was sold to Telenet, a Belgian cable broadband service provider.

In 2007 KPN purchased the Belgian fixed telephone and broadband operations of the Tele2-Versatel joint venture. These were sold again in December 2009 to Mobistar (now Orange Belgium).

In 2009, KPN bought a 33.3% share in MVNO Mobile Vikings,[22] which was sold to Medialaan in 2015.

Germany

In Germany, KPN formerly owned mobile provider E-Plus, which was Germany's third largest mobile phone network. E-Plus was sold to Telefónica Germany in 2014.

France

In France, KPN was active as a mobile virtual network operator under the brand name Simyo, which was sold to Bouygues Télécom in 2011.

International

From 1996 until 2001, KPN owned 17.28% stake in the Indonesian-based Telkomsel. It was sold to Singtel in 2001.

From 2009 until 2019, KPN owned the US-based iBasis. The company was sold to Tofane Global in 2019.[23]

In 2006, KPN acquired Belgian ICT services company Newtel Essence (call center solutions and customer relations management).[24]