Deutsche Telekom: Lab Throughput Gains, a Raised Buyback Call and the SpaceX Overhang
Published on 10/25/2026 at 11:31 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Deutsche Telekom shares fell 3.7% on Friday as investors weighed the prospect of fresh US wireless competition against a pair of more constructive signals — a bullish buyback revision from JPMorgan and laboratory results showing that artificial intelligence can squeeze more performance out of the existing network.
The sell-off, attributed by dpa-AFX to the SpaceX threat, sits awkwardly beside the week's other news flow. On Wednesday the Bonn-based group confirmed progress on AI-driven channel estimation developed with Nokia and NVIDIA. In lab measurements, uplink throughput — data travelling from the handset into the network — typically improved by 10% to 15%, according to company figures. A field trial is the planned next step, meaning the gains are a technical proof of concept rather than evidence of an effect in live network operations.
A buyback estimate, not a promise
JPMorgan's Akhil Dattani reaffirmed an "Overweight" rating on Wednesday and lifted his medium-term forecasts, raising the bank's assumption for Telekom share buybacks in 2026 from EUR 2 billion to EUR 3.5 billion. The distinction matters: this is an analyst projection for future capital returns, not an announced change to the company's repurchase programme, and it leaves the competitive questions hanging over the US business untouched.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Deutsche Telekom?
Barclays took a different tack on Tuesday, cutting its price target to EUR 32 from EUR 35 while keeping "Overweight." Analyst Maurice Patrick flagged satellite technology and agentic AI as risks to cash flow across the telecom sector. The two houses are not at odds on the investment case — both remain positive — but they place their emphasis differently, one on shareholder returns, the other on technological disruption.
The SpaceX connection runs through T-Mobile US
Behind the price pressure are reported ambitions from Elon Musk's SpaceX to build another US mobile network. Reuters reported talks over access to at least 80,000 mobile sites, while Bloomberg carried the same figure. The link to Deutsche Telekom is direct: the German group holds more than 50% of T-Mobile US, per Reuters, exposing it to any shift in American wireless competition.
How much weight to give that threat is where opinions divide. Deutsche Bank, in a note dated 19 October, reiterated its buy recommendation, with analyst Robert Grindle arguing that fears over the SpaceX plans and agent-based AI look overdone. Agentic AI, it should be said, is a separate matter from the network-level AI that Telekom tested with its partners — one concerns software that acts autonomously, the other the radio link itself.
Hard numbers due 5 November
The next confirmed financial checkpoint arrives on 5 November, when Deutsche Telekom publishes third-quarter 2026 results. Those figures will give investors a yardstick that neither lab benchmarks nor hypothetical rivals can supply. For now the picture splits cleanly into three parts: measured technical progress still awaiting real-world validation, a competitive threat that has been discussed but not built, and analyst expectations that remain estimates until the company itself confirms them.
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