Global Telco Market Tracker, 4Q25: Capex Restraint Pays Off as Margins Near Decade Highs

This report delivers a detailed financial and operational snapshot of 144 telecommunications network operators (telcos) worldwide, tracking performance from 1Q11 through 4Q25. It captures revenue, labor, capex, opex, and profitability data with a focus on the most recent quarter (4Q25).

Key findings:

• Global telco revenues climbed 5.4% year-over-year (YoY) in 4Q25 to reach $481.3 billion (B), continuing a stable growth trend witnessed over the past three quarters. On an annualized 4Q25 basis, revenues increased 3.5% YoY to $1.85 trillion (T). Focusing on the 20 largest telcos, the strongest annualized revenue growth by company came from Etisalat (23.1%), Airtel (18.8%), SoftBank (9.8%), Deutsche Telekom (7.4%), and KDDI (4.9%). The weakest performance came from Telefonica (-8.2%) and Charter (-0.6%), while mature operators such as BT (0.2%) and China Telecom (0.0%) remained broadly flat. Consolidation activity including Swisscom-Vodafone Italia and Vodafone-Three UK also materially influenced reported growth trends.
• Capex remained subdued in 4Q25, rising just 0.2% YoY to $86.6B as operators prioritized capital discipline, AI-enabled efficiency, and monetization of prior 5G investments. On an annualized basis, capex declined 0.9% to $295.7B, remaining below the $300B threshold for a second consecutive year. The strongest annualized capex growth rates were recorded by Swisscom (40.7%), Etisalat (40.5%), Airtel (24.4%), SoftBank (10.5%), and Deutsche Telekom (10.3%). The steepest capex declines came from China Telecom (-13.6%), Telefonica (-12.3%), China Unicom (-11.5%), Reliance Jio (-10.8%), and China Mobile (-8.1%).
• Global telco workforce declined 1.9% YoY to 4.34 million employees in 4Q25 as operators continued automation, outsourcing, country-level exits, and AI-driven operational transformation initiatives. Despite lower headcount, annualized labor cost per employee rose to $60.2K amid wage inflation, digital talent competition, and union-driven salary increases across several major markets. More details are available in our separately published “Telco Talent Tracker.”
• Profitability remained resilient in 4Q25 despite subdued capex growth and ongoing cost inflation. Annualized EBIT margins stood at 15.7%, easing modestly from the 3Q25 peak of 16.2% but remaining near the highest levels seen in more than a decade. Operators continue embedding AI-driven automation, cloud-native architectures, autonomous network operations, and software-defined infrastructure management to improve efficiency and reduce long-term operating complexity.
• Regionally, the Americas strengthened its lead in 4Q25, accounting for 36.5% of global telecom revenues and 36.3% of capex, supported by resilient performance from T-Mobile US, AT&T, and Verizon. Asia’s revenue share moderated to 35.6% and capex share fell to 32.4%. This is notable given that Chinese telcos have been ramping AI and data center spending, while overall capex continues to decline as cuts to radio/hardware spending post-5G more than offset these gains.