In 1893, postal system and telegraph and telephone services were brought together to form the Staatsbedrijf der Posterijen, Telegrafie en Telefonie (approximately, “National corporation for Postage, Telegraphy and Telephony”), shortened to PTT or internationally as PTT-NL, under the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce.

[2][3] Around a hundred years later, post codes were introduced in the Netherlands in 1977, which allowed full automation of the postal system.

[2] In 1992, KPN cofounded GD Express Worldwide (GDEW) with TNT and the state owned postal companies of Canada, France, West Germany and Sweden.

The company was set to bring together the state-of-the-art fibre-optic networks of the two partners and the Internet services expertise and customer base of EUnet International.

Recently they sold a Dutch department of Getronics named Business Application Services (BAS) to CapGemini for about €250,000,000.

The Dutch Government has issued a warning on this proposed takeover of KPN by Mexican Billionaire Carlos Slim, as part of his ambition to expand his telecom empire.

[9] The plans eventually ended when the "Stichting Preferente Aandelen B KPN" exercised a call option to gain ~50% of the total shares, in order to put up a temporary protection wall against the hostile takeover.

Further in April 2021 EQT AB and Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners jointly started work on a KPN takeover bid for 12.5 billion Euros.

[10] On 10 June 2021, a fiber-optic joint venture called Glaspoort and based in Amsterdam was established, a partnership between KPN and pension fund APG to expand the supply of fiber.

[16] In September 2019, KPN announced that Dominique Leroy will succeed Maximo Ibarra as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management, with effect from 1 December 2019.

Defunct subsidiary providers include XS4ALL, Telfort, Planet Internet, Het Net, Freeler, Speedlinq, HCCNet, Demon Netherlands.

In 2004, KPN also started offering digital terrestrial television in the Netherlands as part of its multi-play services via its subsidiary Digitenne.

In France, KPN was active as a mobile virtual network operator under the brand name Simyo, which was sold to Bouygues Télécom in 2011.

[22] In 2006, KPN acquired Belgian ICT services company Newtel Essence (call center solutions and customer relations management).