Deutsche Telekom (DT) reached an unprecedented peak of success in 2025, becoming the world’s most valuable telco brand and the leading European telco by market capitalization. This standing was symbolized by the “Dancing Elephant” sculpture at its Bonn headquarters. Despite robust 2024 financials (€116 billion revenue, €50 billion EBITDA), CEO Tim Hoettges was “deeply preoccupied” with the provocative question: “Who needs telcos?”. This paranoia led to continuous transformation to avoid the pitfalls faced by companies at their peak. DT accelerated its successful, self-reinforcing “flywheel” strategy—where high investment in infrastructure drove superior customer experience and growth. This strategy was turbo-charged by two key levers: Data & AI and Global Scale. Pervasive AI implementation improved customer experience and efficiency, reducing average customer service call time by 35%, and enabling the network to autonomously optimize capacity by identifying up to 1,500 “micro-events” daily. Global Scale enabled DT’s unique position as the largest telco in the Western Hemisphere, requiring cultural alignment with T-Mobile US (53% owned) to standardize platforms and globally scale products. The most significant strategic hedge was the “second leg”: utilizing €20 billion in free cash flow to invest “double digit billions” in building sovereign data centers and gigabit factories in Europe. This infrastructure pivot extended DT’s core competency and addressed Europe’s demand for data sovereignty. The ultimate ambition was to transform DT from the leading telco into the world’s leading “techco”.
