Deutsche Telekom’s Dual Narrative: Activist Pressure Mounts as JPMorgan Sees a 53% Upside

Deutsche Telekom gains 3.4% as shareholders oppose T-Mobile US merger; JPMorgan sees 53% upside. AI cloud with NVIDIA launched. Stock below moving averages.

Deutsche Telekom’s stock rose 3.4% on Friday to close at €26.15, delivering a weekly gain of 3.77% but still sitting 8.18% lower over the past month. The move came against a backdrop of sharp tension: while JPMorgan reiterated a bullish €40 price target, vocal shareholders led by prominent fund managers are publicly opposing CEO Timotheus Höttges’ plans for a deeper integration with T-Mobile US.

The criticism is coming from heavyweight investors. Jens Ehrhardt of DJE Kapital and Martin Wirth of FPM have both voiced doubts, and one top-30 shareholder has argued that the merger strategy offers no clear benefit to parent-company investors, publicly demanding a better explanation from management. Germany’s federal government, which owns around 28% of the Bonn-based group, is also reported to be skeptical. In an ironic twist, UBS has pointed out that officially abandoning the merger could act as a “positive catalyst” by removing market uncertainty.

JPMorgan’s stance remains firmly opposite. Analyst Akhil Dattani reaffirmed his “Overweight” rating and €40 target on July 10, implying roughly 53% upside from Friday’s close. He cites what he calls a “historical valuation gap” that opened after the stock shed about 30% of its value since March 2025. Dattani notes that T?Mobile US already contributes two-thirds of the group’s operating profit, yet the market has not priced in that underlying strength. He continues to expect double-digit earnings-per-share growth.

The shares touched a 52-week low of €23.54 on June 30 and remain nearly 24% below the year’s peak of €34.35 set in February. On the technical front, the immediate resistance sits at €26.18, followed by the 50-day moving average at €27.38 and the 200-day average at €28.68. Support is anchored in the €23.13–€23.47 zone. The RSI stands at 48.2—neutral—while an annualized volatility of around 31% suggests more turbulence ahead.

A counterweight to the shareholder dissent is the progress of T?Systems’ artificial-intelligence push. Together with NVIDIA, the enterprise unit launched the “Industrial AI Cloud” in Munich, a platform designed to meet European data-sovereignty standards. The data center at its core is equipped with up to 10,000 Blackwell GPUs, and the initiative taps into a trend where roughly 20% of companies have recently repatriated data from global cloud providers.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley kept T?Mobile US as a sector favorite but lowered its long-term price target to $230 from $260, citing potential broadband competition from entrants like Starlink. T?Mobile US announced a cash dividend of $1.02 per share on June 15, payable September 10 to holders of record on August 28.

With the stock still trading 4.49% below its 50-day average and 8.84% below its 200-day average, the upcoming quarterly report will be a critical test for JPMorgan’s thesis. Only then will investors see whether operational momentum can close the gap between shareholder skepticism and analyst conviction.