During the presentation of KPN's annual results of 2002, telecom.paper asked some questions to Ad Scheepbouwer. The CEO said that KPN is ready to make new investments. "For the moment we are out of danger", he says. "But we are not completely back to normal yet. We still have a year before us in which we have to create the right circumstances to really push for growth. We are getting very close to approaching a normal situation." KPN gave some hints about these investments: the company is in contact with German mobile operator MobilCom about a take over of its UMTS network since MobilCom indicated it won’t go on in investing in UMTS. But on a question whether KPN is interested in a takeover of O2 in Germany as well as in the Netherlands, Ad Scheepbouwer reacted with: "No comment." Other new investments are in broadband, in WiFi and in I-mode. KPN is planning a roll out of hotspots to enable customers to get access to fast internet at railway station and public places. I-mode will have MMS and photographic facilities. A new picture mobile phone will be presented next week at the Cebit conference in Germany. About the investments Ad Scheepbouwer had this to say: "We never turned down our investments completely. Investments in new services as well as maintenance did go on all the time. But is has to create a value for the company. We are very strict that investments have to be necessary and they should not just create platforms for fun or whatever. It has to be a business case and we are keen on that. Our main goal is to invest in services and quality."
Telecom.paper: About the debt of KPN down from 15, billion to 12,4 billion is this debt controllable now?
Ad Scheepbouwer: " A zero debt is always better. But we managed to reduce our debt substantially. We forecast another reducing of the debt by 2 billion this year. So the debt will be at the end of this year approximately EURO 10 billion and KPN is capable to manage that. And its of course depending from the way we can finance this debt. The debt situation is absolutely under control now".
Telecom.paper: There are some very strong competitors on the Dutch market. British Telecom for instance with a focus on the business market and now T-Mobile has entered the Dutch mobile market very aggressively. What's your reaction on this?
Ad Scheepbouwer:" T-Mobile in our opinion just replaces Ben. And Ben always has been an aggressive competitor. I wish them all the success on the road to a market share on the Dutch mobile market of 20%, because that's what they want to achieve. British Telecom is active in the market of international data communication. But thanks to the takeover of a part of the network of KPNQwest, namely the Eurorings, we can tackle them . BT is a strong competitor but not a competitor that gives us enormous headaches or nightmares."
So KPN seems to be on track again and is still very keen on reducing costst. The re-branding for instance of KPN Mobile and some other KPN companies in just KPN is in reality meant as a cost reducing process.According to KPN rebranding in just one name is profitable and it won’t cost a penny if its done gradually. KPN is focusing on growth on the Dutch market as well as the Germand and Belgian market. Investments in E-Plus will go up and KPN won’t exclude that some more takeovers in other European countries might be possible in the near future.
