KPN

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, 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 privatised and reorganized as a private business known as Koninklijke PTT Nederland (“Royal PTT Netherlands”), shortened to KPN or PTT Nederland.[3] KPN remained wholly owned but no longer managed by the Dutch government. Its postal service was called PTT Post while its telecom service was called PTT Telecom, both independent from each other.[2]

In 1992, KPN cofounded GD Express Worldwide (GDEW) with TNT and the state owned postal companies of Canada, France, West Germany and Sweden.[2] KPN later bought out the shares held by the state owned postal companies, owning a total of 50% shareholding of GDEW.

KPN took over its GDEW partner TNT between October 1996 and January 1997.[4] KPN also controlled the national Dutch postal services until its postal division was spun-off and merged with TNT to form TNT Post Group (TPG) in 1998.

The Dutch government progressively privatized KPN beginning in 1994, with KPN listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, then reduced its stake to 6.4% in 2005, and finally completed the process in 2006, giving up its golden share veto rights.

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

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.

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 is still divesting parts of Getronics that didn't meet their core interests. Recently they sold a Dutch department of Getronics named Business Application Services (BAS) to CapGemini for about €250,000,000.

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.[6] 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 the Dutch telephone market, KPN is the owner of the fixed telephone operations (FLO) network 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 names Simyo and Ortel Mobile. Defunct mobile subsidiaries include Hi and Telfort.

In the Internet market, KPN provides Internet service under the KPN and XS4ALL brand names. Defunct subsidiary providers include 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.

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,[13] which was sold to Medialaan in 2015.

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.

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

From 2009 until 2019, KPN owned the US-based iBasis. The company was sold to Tofane Global in 2019.[14]

In 2006, KPN acquired Belgian ICT services company Newtel Essence (call center solutions and customer relations management).[15]