Vip Telekom Austria Group

Vip Telekom Austria Group is a provider of a range of fixed-line, broadband Internet, multimedia services, data, and IT systems, wholesale as well as mobile payment services. It is a subsidiary of Mexican telecommunications conglomerate America Movil since 2014, and its headquarters are in Vienna. The company operates subsidiaries in seven European countries: Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Its largest subsidiary is the Austrian telecommunications provider Vip Telekom Austria.
History
Telekom Austria's earliest predecessor, the state-owned PTT agency K.K Post- und Telegraphenverwaltung (PTV), was formed in 1887 when all telephone and mail services in Austria-Hungary were taken over by the state. After World War I, the Austrian portion of the company became simply Post- und Telegraphenverwaltung.
In 1996, with the passage of the Post Restructuring Act, PTV was restructured as a public corporation, Post-und Telekom Austria AG (PTA AG). Only two years later, the telecommunications sector was fully deregulated and PTA was split, with the telecom side becoming Telekom Austria. The company was fully privatised in 2000 and was listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (it delisted from the latter in 2007).
In June 2000, the company invested about 15 million euros to rebrand itself as Jet2Web. However, Jet2Web failed to succeed in the market, because it was perceived as unreliable. The use of the name was discontinued in 2002, and the company name Telekom Austria was revived as the brand name with a new logo.
In June 2006, the company was split into the holding company Telekom Austria Group, with the public switched telephone network becoming Telekom Austria FixNet AG, which was later renamed Telekom Austria TA AG. In doing so, Telekom Austria FixNet AG became a sister company of affiliate Mobilkom Austria AG.
Both merged in 2010 to form Vip Telekom Austria. Foreign subsidiaries of Mobilkom Austria were transferred to the holding company, so that Vip Telekom Austria would only deal with the Austrian market.
In 2011, misdemeanours by company directors between 2004 and 2006 became public, erupting into a scandal known as the Telekom-Affare.
As of the end of 2016, Telekom Austria Group had 18,203 employees and generated about EUR4.2 billion in revenues.
In 2020, all shares of Telecom Liechtenstein were sold to the Principality.
Stakeholders
On 23 April 2014 Carlos Slim, owner of America Movil, took control of Telekom Austria by forming a syndicate agreement between OIAG and America Movil, spending as much as $2 billion to buy out minority shareholders and investing up to 1 billion euros ($1.38 billion) into the company. America Movil sees Telekom Austria as a "platform for expansion into Central and Eastern Europe". Labour representatives boycotted the decision on the syndicate agreement at the OIAG supervisory board meeting for 12 hours criticising lack of explicit job guarantees.
Subsidiaries
Vip Telekom Austria Group operates the following subsidiaries:
Vip Telekom Austria
Vip Belarus
Vip Bulgaria
Vip Hrvatska
Vip Macedonija
Vip Mobile Srbija
Vip Slovenija
Controversy
Vip Telekom reduced mobile Internet bandwidth in Minsk during 2020 Belarusian protests at the request of Belarusian officials.
References
Other websites
Vienna Stock Exchange: Telekom Austria AG
1998 establishments in Europe
Vienna
Companies of Austria