Spark New Zealand

Spark New Zealand Limited
FormerlyTelecom New Zealand
Company typePublic
IndustryTelecommunications
PredecessorNew Zealand Post Office
Founded1 April 1987; 37 years ago (1 April 1987)
HeadquartersAuckland, New Zealand
Area served
New Zealand
Key people
  • Justine Smyth, Chair[1]
  • Jolie Hodson, Chief Executive
  • Stefan Knight, Finance Director
  • Grant McBeath, Customer Director
  • Mark Beder, Technology Director
  • Matt Bain, Marketing Director
  • Heather Polglase, HR Director
  • Melissa Anastasiou, General Counsel
  • Tessa Tierney, Product Director
Services
RevenueDecrease NZ$3,531,000,000 (2015)[2]
Increase NZ$962,000,000 (2015)[2]
Decrease NZ$375,000,000 (2015)[2]
Total assetsNZ$3,207,000,000 (2015)[2]
Total equityNZ$1,778,000,000 (2015)[3]
Number of employees
5,562 (2016)[3]
Divisions
  • Spark Home, Mobile and Business
  • Spark Wholesale
  • Spark Digital
  • Spark Ventures
  • Spark Connect
  • Spark Foundation
  • Skinny Mobile
Website

Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications and digital services company providing fixed-line telephone services, mobile phone services, broadband, and digital technology services (including cloud, security, digital transformation, and managed services). Its customers range from consumers to small - medium business, government agencies and large enterprise clients. It was formerly known as Telecom New Zealand until it was rebranded to Spark on 8 August 2014.[4] It has operated as a publicly traded company since 1990. Spark's mobile network reaches 98% of New Zealand, with over 2.5 million mobile connections and 704,000 broadband connections[5]

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.[6]

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.[7]

Spark has 63 retail locations around New Zealand, including 16 in Auckland.[8]

  1. ^ "Leadership Squad".
  2. ^ a b c d "Spark New Zealand Annual Report 2015" (PDF).
  3. ^ a b "Spark Annual Report 2016" (PDF). Spark Investor Centre. Spark NZ. Retrieved 11 December 2016.
  4. ^ Edward, Swift (21 February 2014). "Telecom rebranding to become Spark". Newstalk ZB. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  5. ^ NZ, Spark (August 2022). "Spark NZ Annual Report 2022" (PDF). Spark NZ. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  6. ^ Griffin, Peter; Twose, Helen (19 July 2007). "NZ's wealthy telcos stingy on investment". The New Zealand Herald.
  7. ^ Fletcher, Hamish (1 December 2011). "Plenty of pomp as Chorus and Telecom part". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
  8. ^ "Spark". spark.co.nz. Spark New Zealand.