Deutsche Telekom Germany (DTAG) announced its 3Q 2022 financial results in November and highlighted strong growth across its business areas. Amid a challenging macroeconomic, energy and consumer-spending environment, the carrier reported strong growth with a 3.2% increase in Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) and a 1.8% growth in service revenue in Europe. In the mobile space, DTAG reported 368,000 net adds in 3Q, a 2.0% service revenue growth and its 24th consecutive quarter of EBITDA growth, also driven by mobile network success.
DTAG operates in one of the most challenging and competitive Western European markets, where subscriber saturation is nearly 100% and competition is rampant between all mobile operators. Nevertheless, the carrier has raised its 2022 financial guidance even further from 2Q 2022, reporting that its current strong growth is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. On the mobile network side, DTAG now reports 94% of population coverage, an increase of 3% compared to 2021 year end, arguably one of the biggest 5G deployments in Western Europe.
The carrier also reaffirmed its sustainability goals, aiming to have a net-zero carbon footprint by 2025, reducing its consumption and doubling its efficiency by 2024 (compared to 2020), and relying on 100% circular technology and devices by 2030. The carrier also reports that it aims to have zero Information and Communication Technology (ICT) waste go to landfills in 2022.
Overall, DTAG not only survived in this challenging environment, but thrived and is aggressively pursuing network performance, financial and sustainability targets. The question is, how did the carrier manage to achieve this? And what can other carriers learn from DTAG’s success?
Deploying an outstanding network is the key to success
DTAG has traditionally been the technology leader in telco networks in Germany and its recent achievements confirm its leading position. The most recent network tests by umlaut confirm that DTAG is the leader in Germany with its 5G network, and the measurement company has titled its network as “Outstanding,” the first case of this title being awarded to a German mobile operator.
The average results for DTAG in Germany illustrate significant differences from competing operators, in some cases, more than double the speed of the data link. For example, DTAG network tests resulted in an average speed of 540.0 Megabits per Second (Mbps) (cities-drivetest), while the next best performing operator achieved 287.4 Mbps.
These results illustrate DTAG’s commitment to deploying an award-winning network throughout Germany. Specifically, the DTAG strategy is focusing on three key pillars:
- Multiple bands for 5G: DTAG has deployed at 3.6 Gigahertz (GHz), and with wide deployments of 2.1 GHz Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS), DTAG has deployed one of the widest networks with 5G coverage. Moreover, DTAG launched 5G at 700 MHz in June 2022 to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural areas, using both Time Division Duplex (TDD) and Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) modes to deploy 5G across most of its spectrum assets. This allowed the German operator to offer significant improvements for indoor coverage.
- Focus on all areas: DTAG is not only focusing on urban areas with 5G, but also rural areas and even high-speed rail scenarios. There was a clear trend in the umlaut tests, illustrating improvements in both voice and data quality.
- Sustainability: The German operator continuously focuses on modernizing its network and thus reducing energy consumption, aiming to reach carbon neutrality in 2025.
DTAG is taking advantage of its network performance in its marketing material, highlighting that it operates the best 5G network in Germany with very wide population coverage. By having this network as its business foundation, DTAG can offer multiple benefits to end users, including cloud gaming and other new consumer applications.
What can other carriers learn from DTAG’s success?
Telco operators in advanced, developed markets are now attempting to create new revenue streams in the enterprise domain, while trying to diversify their business models with new applications, partnerships and ecosystems. However, the DTAG example shows that success is almost certain when a comprehensive network strategy is in place and executed, despite external market challenges. DTAG has illustrated that despite the European energy crisis, the challenging economic conditions and supply chain constraints, it has succeeded in deploying Germany’s fastest and most reliable 5G network and is now translating this to financial success for multiple consecutive quarters. Other European operators should follow DTAG’s example and accelerate their 5G rollouts, offering higher speeds and better user experiences to consumers and enterprises.
