Swisscom, the biggest player in the Swiss telecommunication industry, is one of the safest Swiss companies to invest in. The reason is that the Swiss government owns 51% of its shares.
In Switzerland there is a law that every household must have access to a telephone line. Swisscom, fulfilling its historical obligation of providing access to all households, is not obliged to share its newer infrastructure with competitors.
As a semi-private company Swisscom, fulfilling state regulations, still enjoys some amount of protection by the Swiss government, thus making what many people think of as a “safe investment”.
It pays a good dividend, and as a customer and investor you could see the dividend as a discount on your subscription fee with Swisscom.