The Autoriteit Consument & Markt (ACM) has approved KPN’s acquisition of Youfone.
According to the competition regulator, the acquisition will not reduce competition. The ACM reached this conclusion after extensive research into the acquisition, which was announced in August 2023. For KPN, attracting Youfone was interesting because it would further strengthen its position in the telecom market, in part by attracting more than half a million Youfone customers. Youfone was already active on KPN’s networks. KPN pays €200 million to acquire Youfone.
No objections
When announcing the investigation, which began in September 2023, the ACM indicated that the acquisition might lead to less competition. Now, the regulator sees that no significant competitive force is lost, and some sufficient other providers continue to exert competitive pressure.
In the licensing phase, the ACM looked particularly at lower-priced mobile services. According to the regulator, however, sufficient choice remains for consumers. In addition to Youfone, several providers offer competitively priced cell phone subscriptions, the ACM stated. Economic research shows that prices are unlikely to change significantly; the price effect of the takeover is estimated at -0.4 to 0.7 per cent.
Another possible obstacle that ACM wanted to rule out was the impact of the acquisition on other mobile operators without their own network. They may effectively threaten to switch to another network, such as Odido or VodafoneZiggo. According to the ACM, this threat results in these providers being able to negotiate better terms with KPN. Thus, the acquisition has no significant effect on KPN’s incentive to allow these providers on the network.
KPN plans to allow Youfone’s organization to operate independently so that existing and future Youfone subscribers can continue to be served in the same familiar way.
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