Telecom NZ

Spark New Zealand Limited

Type	Public
Traded as	NZX: SPK ASX: SPK
Industry	Telecommunications
Predecessor	New Zealand Post Office
Founded	1 April 1987; 29 years ago (1 April 1987) (as Telecom New Zealand) 8 August 2014; 2 years ago (8 August 2014) (as Spark New Zealand)
Headquarters	Auckland
Area served	New Zealand
Key people	Mark Verbiest, Chairman Simon Moutter, Managing Director Jolie Hodson, CFO Jason Paris, CEO Spark Home, Mobile and Business Tim Miles, CEO Spark Digital David Havercroft, COO Spark Connect Rod Snodgrass, CEO Spark Ventures
Products	Mobile Services Broadband services Landline services
Services	Fixed Telephony Mobile Telephony Internet Access Leased Lines Data Transmission ICT Solutions Streaming Video on Demand Home Automation
Revenue	NZ$3,531,000,000 (2015)
Operating income	NZ$962,000,000 (2015)
Profit	NZ$375,000,000 (2015)
Total assets	NZ$3,206,000,000 (2015)
Total equity	NZ$1,778,000,000 (2015)
Number of employees	5,562 (2016)
Divisions	Spark Home, Mobile and Business Spark Wholesale Spark Digital Spark Ventures Spark Connect Spark Foundation
Website	spark.co.nz sparknz.co.nz sparkdigital.co.nz sparkventures.co.nz sparkfoundation.org.nz

Spark New Zealand (formerly Telecom New Zealand) is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed line telephone services, a mobile network, an internet service provider, and a major ICT provider to NZ businesses (through its Spark Digital division). It has operated as a publicly traded company since 1990.

Spark is one of the largest companies by value on the New Zealand Exchange (NZX). As of 2007, it was the 39th largest telecommunications company in the OECD. The company is part of New Zealand Telecommunications Forum.

Telecom New Zealand was formed in 1987 from a division of the New Zealand Post Office, and privatised in 1990. In 2008, Telecom was operationally separated into three divisions under local loop unbundling initiatives by central government – Telecom Retail; Telecom Wholesale; and Chorus, the network infrastructure division. This separation effectively ended any remnants of monopoly that Telecom Retail once had in the market. In 2011 the demerger process was complete, with Telecom and Chorus becoming separate listed companies. On 8 August 2014, the company changed its name to Spark New Zealand.

The Postal Services Act 1987 split the then New Zealand Post Office into New Zealand Post Limited (trading as NZPost), Telecom New Zealand Limited (trading as Telecom) and Post Office Bank Limited (trading as PostBank, sold to ANZ in 1989) and all three industries progressively deregulated. The selling price of Telecom was considered by some to be extremely low, given that Telecom had a monopoly of all phone lines in New Zealand at the time. There has been debate as to whether privatisation was in the best interests of the country's telecommunications infrastructure, although others consider that the capital requirements to modernise the network were better provided by private enterprise than the government.