DT Turns Up the Payout Dial as Fiber, Mobile Growth Supercharge Q3

Deutsche Telekom is sweetening returns for shareholders after another strong quarter powered by its role at the heart of Europe’s digital ecosystem. The company will lift its 2025 dividend to €1 a share and buy back up to €2 billion in stock, as third-quarter profits rose on surging demand for high-speed fiber and mobile services in Germany.

The operator connected a record 155,000 homes to fiber and added more than 300,000 new mobile contracts, underscoring how its network investments are paying off.

Support from U.S. arm T-Mobile continues to fuel growth, giving Deutsche Telekom the scale to reinvest in Europe’s digital infrastructure. The company also nudged its annual profit outlook higher to €45.3 billion, signaling confidence that data-driven services and premium connectivity will keep margins strong.

Vodafone Snaps Back to Growth in Germany on 1&1 Deal, Lifts Dividend

Vodafone is back in growth mode in Germany — its biggest market — after signing 1&1 as a major wholesale customer. The deal lifted quarterly service revenue by half a percent to €2.74 billion, ending a long slump triggered by tougher rules and lost TV subscribers.

The turnaround is central to CEO Margherita Della Valle’s strategy of streamlining the group after selling off units in Italy and Spain and merging with Three in the UK.

Vodafone also launched a modest dividend hike — for the first time in seven years — and now expects profit at the high end of guidance.

The company has also relied on continued growth in Africa…

Vodacom Taps Starlink to Turbocharge Connectivity as Profits Surge

…Where a major shift in connectivity is underway as Vodafone subsidiary Vodacom moves to integrate Starlink’s satellite technology into its network, a step set to widen broadband access in hard-to-reach regions. The partnership positions the operator to accelerate rural coverage and reinforce its expanding digital services ecosystem.

That momentum is reflected in Vodacom’s latest results. The company posted its strongest profit growth in over ten years, with first-half earnings surging a third to 4.72 rand per share. Group revenue rose 11% to 81.6 billion rand, boosted by exceptional performances in Egypt and an improved contribution from Kenya’s Safaricom, where Vodacom owns a one-third stake.

Mobile money remains a cornerstone: M-Pesa processed $477 billion in transactions over the past year, underscoring its role as one of Africa’s most powerful financial platforms.

Verizon Slashes 15% of Workforce in Biggest-Ever Reset

Verizon’s new CEO Dan Schulman is preparing the company’s largest-ever layoff—about 15,000 jobs, or 15% of its workforce—Reuters reports citing a person familiar with the matter. This aggressive restructuring aims to counter intensifying wireless competition and weak subscriber growth.

The reductions will heavily target non-union management and shift around 180 corporate-owned stores to franchise operators, part of Schulman’s push to simplify the company’s cost base.

Verizon has been losing momentum as AT&T, T-Mobile, and cable providers lure customers with cheaper bundles and aggressive iPhone promotions; in Q3 it added just 44,000 postpaid subscribers, far behind rivals.

Schulman says Verizon must become “leaner and scrappier,” but analysts question whether deep cost cuts can offset rising retention expenses in a saturated market. Shares rose around 1.5% on the news.

EU Backs Mobile Operators in 6GHz Battle

Europe’s mobile operators look set to secure a major win in the battle over the 6GHz spectrum, a key resource for future 5G and 6G networks — Reuters reports.

People with direct knowledge of the matter told the news agency that an advisory body to the European Commission recommends allocating 540 MHz of the upper 6GHz band to carriers like Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Orange, and TIM, while reserving the remaining 160 MHz for Wi-Fi and pausing decisions until the 2027 ITU conference.

The move is designed to keep Europe competitive with the U.S., South Korea, and Canada in next-generation mobile technology, as operators warn that lack of mid-band spectrum could slow 6G rollout in the 2030s. Tech giants including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta had lobbied for more spectrum for Wi-Fi and digital services, highlighting the tension between mobile networks and internet applications.

For Europe’s mobile ecosystem, securing this spectrum is a critical step toward faster, broader connectivity — and staying in the global race for the next generation of wireless innovation.

Google Offers Fixes as It Fights EU’s €3B Ad Tech Crackdown

Google is offering limited changes to its ad tech tools to address a nearly €3 billion EU antitrust order — one of Brussels’ toughest penalties yet — but it still plans to appeal the ruling.

The company will allow publishers to set different minimum prices for bidders in Google Ad Manager and improve interoperability across its ad tech stack to give advertisers and publishers more flexibility.

EU regulators say Google abused its dominance by favoring its own ad exchange, and competition chief Teresa Ribera has suggested that only a divestiture of parts of Google’s ad tech business would fully level the playing field. Google rejects that view.

The penalty brings EU fines against Google to €9.5 billion across multiple cases, even as the company remains number one in the $757 billion global digital ad market, with more than $200 billion in expected 2025 ad revenue.

Brussels Probes Google for ‘Burying’ Publisher Commerce Pages in Search

The EU has launched a formal probe into whether Google is unfairly burying commercial content produced by news publishers—such as pages featuring sponsored deals or affiliate partnerships—under its anti-spam policies.

Regulators say these sub-domains are sometimes pushed so far down search results that users effectively can’t find them, potentially costing publishers valuable traffic and revenue.

Under the Digital Markets Act, Google must give publishers fair and non-discriminatory access to Search.

Google rejects the investigation as misguided.

Liberty Global Blasts EU for “Strangling” Europe’s Next-Gen Network Ambitions

Liberty Global’s chief executive Mike Fries has launched a sharp attack on Brussels, accusing the EU of keeping “its foot on the industry’s neck” for two decades. Speaking at a telecoms conference, Fries said Europe’s regulators had ignored Mario Draghi’s 2024 report urging reforms to help create stronger telecom champions able to compete with the U.S. and China.

He pointed to stalled action on spectrum policy, merger rules, and investment incentives — all vital for building next-generation networks. Liberty Global, which co-owns Virgin Media O2 and VodafoneZiggo, argues that tighter merger controls are stifling investment in 5G, fiber, and AI-driven connectivity — the backbone of Europe’s digital future.

Brussels says work continues on the long-delayed Digital Networks Act, meant to modernize telecom rules, but operators say the delay speaks louder than words.

Oracle Becomes AI Sell-Off’s Biggest Casualty

Oracle has become the biggest casualty of the tech-sector sell-off as investors recoil from its massive, debt-fuelled push into AI infrastructure — The Financial Times reports.

The company has committed extraordinary levels of spending — running into the hundreds of billions — to build data-centre capacity for OpenAI, making it the only hyperscaler with negative free cash flow and a debt load projected by some analysts to triple by 2028.

Oracle’s shares have dropped almost 30% in a month, far worse than peers, while its bond prices have slumped as credit agencies warn that an unusually high share of future revenue will depend on a single, loss-making AI start-up.

Analysts question whether Oracle’s late shift from enterprise software to AI cloud services can justify the capital intensity, especially as its long-dated data-centre leases outlast key customer contracts.

SMIC Warns of 2026 Memory Crunch Set to Hit Phones, Cars, Consumer Tech

China’s top contract chipmaker SMIC is warning that a global memory-chip crunch will hit cars, smartphones and consumer electronics in 2026, as AI demand siphons supply toward Nvidia-linked accelerator production. 

Co-CEO Zhao Haijun said Chinese clients are already holding back on orders for early 2026 because they’re unsure they can secure enough DRAM and NAND — with prices projected to surge as SK Hynix, Samsung and Kioxia prioritize high-margin AI memory over mainstream products.

SMIC says memory scarcity, not logic capacity, is becoming the key bottleneck. Demand now exceeds SMIC’s ability to supply, and capex will stay roughly flat after $7.3B last year — even as China’s chip sector ramps up equipment orders placed ahead of ASML’s expected revenue dip in the country.

Carmakers Sound Alarm as Nexperia Chip Halt Risks Europe-Wide Production Hit

European carmakers warned of a “devastating” chip shortage as Nexperia’s supply crunch continues, threatening production lines across the continent — The Financial Times reports.

The Dutch chipmaker, which produces low-margin semiconductors used in everything from airbags to car locks, has paused shipments to its Chinese subsidiary due to a corporate dispute, even after Beijing eased export restrictions.

Carmakers say remaining stocks in China may last only until mid-December, forcing them to scramble for alternative sources to avoid disruptions.

The crisis highlights how fragile the automotive supply chain is, particularly as key chips are designed and partially manufactured in Europe before assembly abroad.

These basic chips underpin not only cars but connected vehicle systems, signaling that supply chain friction can ripple into broader tech networks.