Telecom New Zealand
Telecom New Zealand is a telecommunications company, owns most of the New Zealand telephone network and is the second largest mobile phone operator.
Telecom was formed in 1987 from a division of the New Zealand Post Office and privatised in 1990. The selling price is considered by many to be extremely low, given that Telecom had a monopoly of all phone lines in New Zealand at the time. Others consider that the capital requirements to modernise the network were better provided by private enterprise than the government.
Telecom is the largest company by value on the New Zealand Exchange (NZX) and movements in its share price have a great influence on the index of movements in the top forty companies.
Telecom Mobile
Telecom Moble operates AMPS, Digital D-AMPS/TDMA and CDMA mobile phone systems in New Zealand. AMPS and D-AMPS service is sold under the 025 brand and CDMA services are sold under the 027 brand. Telecom is currently encouraging their customers to migrate over to their newer 027 system. The older 025 system is set to be phased out by the end of 2007.
Customer Numbers and Market Share
The following is customer numbers and market share information for Telecom Mobile, which includes both 025 and 027 customers. Since Vodafone took over BellSouth in the late 1990's Telecom's market share has dropped every year.
| Quarter | No of Customers | Market Share % |
|---|
| December 1999 | 858,000 | 68.37% |
| December 2000 | 1,150,000 | 60.43% |
| December 2001 | 1,379,000 | 56.94% |
| December 2002 | 1,229,000 | 50.18% |
| December 2003 | 1,298,000 | 49.95% |
