According to Brand Finance Global 500 report, DT beats Verizon and AT&T, while e&’s brand increased eight-fold in the last 12 months, but techcos rule the roost
Deutsche Telekom (DT), owner of the Magenta brand, has the most valuable telco brand in Europe and the world. According to the annual Brand Finance Global 500 report, the brand’s value increased by 16.4% since last year to $85.3 billion, which is also the highest in the company’s 30-year history, according to DT.
DT’s brand value has more than doubled in the last five years. The operator boasted in a statement [translated from German] that it “plays in the same league as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon”. Well, not quite – see table below. The gap between the top 4 and #11 is in orders of magnitude.
Top 20 of Brand Finance’s Global 500 report 2025
Source: https://brandirectory.com/reports/global
DT is just outside the top 10 and only has Verizon for company from telecoms in the top 20, ranked 15.
Brand Finance highlight DT’s “consistent brand management and the positive economic and technological development of DT as special success criteria”. The study cites the high quality of its networks and sustainable investments in the networks, plus high levels of customer satisfaction.
Although DT’s brand value rose it was nudged out of the top ten by NVIDIA, which catapulted from thirtieth place last year to ninth: NVIDIA has the highest like for like growth at 98%, making it the second fastest growing brand value for 2025. The State Grid Corporation of China also eased DT out of the top 10, rising to tenth from twelfth in 2024.
The research house said e& is the fastest growing brand value in the world this year, posting an eight-fold increase in brand value to $5.3 billion and ranking 146 after “the final stage of a 3-year group rebrand, staged to transition brand equity from Etisalat to e& as a platform for international growth”. The like for like brand value growth is 13% versus the combined value of the brands in 2024.
As for other major operators, AT&T was third after Verizon, China Mobile is at 27, Orange at 118, stc at 136 and Vodafone at 192.
