Operational Strength Meets Market Skepticism: Deutsche Telekom’s Shares Slide Despite Upgraded Forecast

Deutsche Telekom shares drop 1.6% to €28.42, 18% below 52-week high, even as Q1 revenue rises 4.7% and EBITDA guidance lifted to €47.5B. Technical indicators signal weakness.

The gap between Deutsche Telekom’s operational performance and its share price is widening. On Wednesday, the stock shed 1.6% to close at €28.42, a level that sits 18% below the 52-week peak of €34.35 reached in February. Technical indicators reinforce the malaise: the relative strength index stands at 41.5, and the price has fallen below both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages. With a year-to-date decline of nearly 17%, the equity is languishing well off the €34.36 high seen earlier in 2026, though still above the 52-week floor of €26.00.

The slide comes even as the Bonn-based group delivered a broadly encouraging set of first-quarter numbers. Revenue rose to €29.87 billion on a reported basis, while organic growth reached 4.7%, equivalent to roughly €29.9 billion. Adjusted EBITDA AL improved organically by 7.5% to €11.5 billion — the exact reported figure was €11.52 billion — and adjusted net income climbed 6.5% to €2.6 billion. Adjusted earnings per share ticked up from €0.50 to €0.54. The only blemish on the income statement was a decline in reported net profit to €2.04 billion, a bookkeeping drag that analysts typically view as less material than underlying trends.

Management used the results to nudge full-year guidance higher. Adjusted EBITDA AL is now forecast at around €47.5 billion, free cash flow AL at more than €19.8 billion, while adjusted EPS remains pegged at roughly €2.20. The market’s muted response — a decline rather than a rally — suggests profit-taking or sector-wide pressure rather than a reassessment of fundamentals. Cash generation is the engine for fibre and mobile network investment, and the first quarter delivered free cash flow AL of €5.7 billion, up 0.7% year on year.

The domestic business continues to provide the backbone. In Germany, fibre penetration rose from 15.5% to 17.1%, with over 13 million households now connected directly. FTTH contracts reached 2.2 million by the end of March. Mobile service revenue grew 2.1%, and the operator added 200,000 own-brand contract customers. The German segment’s organic adjusted EBITDA AL hit €2.7 billion. However, the fixed-line side shows the structural headwinds facing the industry: total broadband connections slipped from 16.8 million at end-2025 to 16.7 million three months later. Mobile customers, by contrast, increased from 74.5 million to 75.3 million over the same period.

The next major catalyst arrives on 6 August, when second-quarter numbers are due. Until then, investors will weigh whether free cash flow momentum and fibre take-up can justify the raised annual targets. For now, the stock’s retreat underscores that even solid fundamentals are no immunity to technical pressure on Xetra.