Deutsche Telekom AG ($DTE)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, I would like to extend a warm welcome to you, and I hereby open this year's Annual General Meeting of Deutsche Telekom AG and assume the chair in accordance with the company's Articles of Association. On behalf of the Supervisory Board and the Management Board, I would like to warmly welcome you, the shareholders and shareholder representatives as well as the members of the press and our other guests here in Bonn. If in German, I use the masculine form of address here, and in the course of this meeting, this is done solely for the sake of linguistic simplicity, the masculine form of address, of course, includes all genders. We are very pleased to welcome you once again physically here at the World Conference Center, Bonn, this year. With the exception of Ms. Schottke, the Supervisory Board is attending this year's Annual General Meeting in full. Ms. Schottke is unfortunately unable to attend for personal reasons. The Management Board is present in full. On my left, I would like to welcome Dr.Markus [indiscernible] Notary Public, who is in charge of recording this Annual General Meeting. First, a few remarks regarding the venue. The main venue for today's meeting is this New York hall, including the gallery accessible to you from outside. And I see it is filling up. Great. You may also follow the proceedings via audio and video in the Nairobi 1 room. The attendance area includes all rooms accessible to you after passing through the so-called accreditation area. So in addition to the rooms already mentioned, this also includes the outdoor area accessible from inside the building as well as all other adjacent rooms and areas accessible to you, including the lobby up to the exit and accreditation counters. The registration desk is located here in the main room. On my right, at the far end of this hall. We also have set up an information desk for you. Again, it is located in the lobby on the entrance level. The shareholders and shareholder representatives present will be included in the list of attendees. This list is maintained electronically and is available with ongoing updates. It can be viewed at the terminals. You will find these here in the main room at the back on the right and left as well as in the Nairobi 1 room. The notice convening the Annual General Meeting together with a complete agenda and the management's proposed resolutions on the announced agenda items was published in due form and time in the Federal Gazette on February 27, 2026, and was also published throughout Europe on the same day. A printout of the notice is available to the notary and can also be viewed at the registration desk. The notary will attach a copy of the minutes as an appendix. At the registration desk, you may also review the documents related to today's Annual General Meeting in addition to the invitation and agenda that have been available on the company's website since the notice of the meeting was published. The countermotions and nominations to be made available have been published on our company's website along with all necessary details. Copies of these are available at the registration desk as well as at the information desk in the lobby on the entrance level. The company has not received any motions to amend the agenda pursuant to Section 122 (2) of the German Stock Corporation Act. Today's Annual General Meeting will be broadcast live in full on the Internet and recorded for documentary purposes. This opening statement as well as Mr. Hottges' speech and any further remarks by Mr. Hottges will be available online later. For the sake of good order, I would like to point out that the Management Board is assisted by back-office staff in recording the questions and preparing the answers. To ensure that the questions are recorded correctly, an audio recording will be made, which will subsequently be deleted. Please understand that it is not permitted to make your own video or audio recordings of the meeting. You have received an AGM card at the registration desks today. You will need your AGM card to exercise the rights that you have as a shareholder at today's meeting, in particular, your voting rights. In addition the AGM card contains all important information regarding leaving the meeting early as well as granting proxies and giving instructions. I hereby refer to this information. The AGM card must be presented at the exit checkpoint if you leave the Annual General Meeting early. We will conduct the discussion on the agenda items in the form of a general debate. Each speaker may address all items on the agenda and ask questions regarding them. I would like to ask those shareholders who wish to exercise their right to speak or ask questions to please sign up at the registration desk over there by presenting their AGM card. There, you will receive sign-up forms, which you should please fill out and hand to a staff member at the registration desk. I would like to ask those shareholders who intend to speak to submit their requests for the floor as early as possible from now on. I will explain the voting procedure in detail immediately prior to voting. However, as a precaution, I would like to point out now that for the upcoming votes, votes may only be cast here in the main room. We will again be using a gong as an acoustic signal to indicate the start and end of the votes. I will now sound it once for demonstration purposes. So after these organizational remarks, we will now proceed to the agenda. Agenda Item 1 is documents to be submitted to the Annual General Meeting pursuant to Section 176 sentence Clause 1 of the German Stock Corporation Act. Under this agenda item, the following documents, in particular, will be presented, the annual financial statements, the consolidated financial statements, the combined management report and group management report and the report of the Supervisory Board. These and other documents related to today's Annual General Meeting are available on the company's website. You may also view them at the information desk. In the lobby, you will also find terminals where you can view the online version of the annual report as well as the notice of today's Annual General Meeting, including the agenda in PDF format. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now give the floor to Mr. Hottges for his report on behalf of the Management Board. [Presentation]

Very good morning to you, dear shareholders. Do you like building things with LEGO? I love LEGO. And that's why I would like to build some LEGO with you today. As you just saw, we have built a gigantic AI factory that makes Germany more sovereign, and that will make it possible for us to use more AI applications here in Germany, and that also will represent a new field of business for Deutsche Telekom. So we've built this AI factory. We announced it in good time, but what is this AI factory all about? And how is the government? How are the big corporations handling all this sensitive data here in Germany in the future? Well, this factory is a story for itself, a 50% increase of the GPUs. So that's the graphic processes here in Germany. And we have 6 floors underground. There, we built a data center to manage all this data. But how does that work specifically? This is what I would like to talk about today. We have all the data. Our companies have a lot of highly sensitive patent-related data, scientific data, scientific know-how, et cetera. This know-how needs to be transferred to the cloud. How does that work via good networks? And who builds the best networks in Germany? Well, I'll leave it up to you to make a guess. Connectivity is the prerequisite for gathering the data and for making this data available to companies later on. And Telekom knows how to do that because connectivity is our core business, 4x 400 gigabits per second. These are the lines we are using to pump data into the data center and to extract that data again. And now lots of data is coming in from various companies, not coordinated, unstructured, et cetera, and a lot of highly sensitive data, too. So the next thing we need to do is we need to make sure that none of this data is getting lost. And that's why we need top security in line with the regulatory requirements here in Europe, but also to protect the companies themselves in the network and also outside of the network. TSEC is one of our business divisions that generates more than EUR 300 million in revenue, and it guarantees this security. It builds this security into our infrastructure to make sure that all this data can be transferred in a safe manner. And this has also been implemented in our AI factory. So now we've got all the data in the factory, but the big question is what are we going to do with all this unstructured data? And this is where TCloud comes into play. So what do we do with TCloud? TCloud gathers the data, structures the data, then files it redundantly, organizes it. And at the same time, the cloud makes sure that new data can be scaled as soon as AI helps us to gain new findings. Think of it as a wardrobe where you can save all your clothes, and we just do the same with data. And TCloud wasn't just developed last year. Deutsche Telekom has been working on this cloud for the past 10 years. We also refer to it as the sovereign cloud because it is only operated here in Germany and only run by Telekom in-house staff in a sovereign fashion and highly reliable. So now we've organized all this data, the wardrobe is full. But that doesn't mean that, that makes clothes any cleaner or that we have organized things perfectly. In order to do that, we bring in the infamous GPUs, the processors. You will remember the term CPUs. These are the processors that are working step-by-step. Now we have the so-called GPUs, the graphic processing units. And they look like this. And you are using the same thing in your PCs. This comes from my PC. This is the graphic card that my son is using for gaming. But we don't want them to game all the time, right, which is why I just removed this thing from his PC. And basically, this box here is nothing different from the graphic card from IPC, but it is much more efficient, much more powerful. And by the way, this is what we need to make AI a reality. This box has 8 GPUs. It's an installation from NVIDIA. How much does it cost? EUR 350,000. And in our data center in Munich, we have 10,000 of these boxes installed. So you can probably imagine the computing power that is emerging there. These processes come from the best in this world. And I'm guessing, you also hold shares in NVIDIA. After all, this is the global market leader with the most efficient GPUs and processors in the world. But probably, you still have a hard time figuring out how things actually work in a data center. And that's why we established a live connection to our underground section in the Tucherpark in Munich, [ Marta. ] Why don't you explain to us what you're doing there?

Hello, Tim. Dear shareholders. I'm in Munich right now. I'm 4 floors underground in our AI computing center, our data center. And this is a part where you have several CPUs interconnected. So let's go inside. But here's a warning. We're talking 115 decibels. So it's deafening. It's as if you know, a plane was about to take off next to me. Tim already showed you a single GPU. Here, we have around 500 of these GPUs, but that's why it's so loud in here, because we have hundreds of ventilators here. Tim, I hope that it won't be quite so deafening on the stage on your side unless it's because people are just giving you such a big hand here.

Right. Well, thank you so much, Marta. So we have countless highly efficient computers there from the company NVIDIA. And NVIDIA basically now processes all this data using very efficient devices. But then there are all sorts of different requirements for the systems that we are using. And this is what the so-called orchestration comes into play, and that's software. So we figured we don't want to be dependent on foreign software, maybe from the U.S., we want to use German or European software instead. And ladies and gentlemen, we do that by way of the so-called Business Transformation Platform, BTP. I know these are terrible terms here. But after all, we are playing LEGO, right? So we are using BTP from the company, SAP. What do we do with this BTP? Well, this platform can exchange data across different applications. It orchestrates the data as part of different industrial applications and then connects the application to the data center to achieve the targets that we have set for ourselves. How do we do that? What sort of applications are we talking about that we are running in this data center in Germany today? The first thing that springs to mind is certainly Siemens. Siemens is one of the big users of our data center in Munich. And what do they do? Siemens, they are organizing industrial manufacturing processes. You see companies are building major industrial systems that need to be properly planned, set up, structured, optimized, so that we can achieve the highest level of productivity. In the past, this was mostly done physically. You would build a production line and then test if it works. Today, this is optimized in virtual ways. We are using so-called digital twins. And this means that all the factories have a digital twin and then you can optimize them in the system, production lanes visualized, human intervention is visualized. Ultimately, you can simulate everything on a computer first, which makes -- which gives you far more time and it is much more cost efficient to do all these things in a digital twin instead of having to do it all physically. And there's another application. And that's from Quantum Systems, another company. It's a company that used to build drones for civil purposes. Now they're also very active in Ukraine for reconnaissance purposes, and they are used for military purposes as well. Drones are flying autonomously. The missions they have need to be simulated in order for the drone to orientate itself. And the drone is sort of trained in our data center. So we are talking about large volumes of data that need to be trained and the GPUs from NVIDIA make this possible highly efficiently in parallel mode. I could spend hours talking about this. I could tell you something about another company called Wandelbots, that is using robots in our AI data center. I could also tell you that all that is completely carbon-free, not just because the electricity comes from green energy, but also because we are using the ice pack for cooling. And we are using it for cooling and also for heating. And by the way, the fact that the wave didn't work, that wasn't because of us. That was far up in the north, not where our data center was set up in the south. Ladies and gentlemen, Deutsche Telekom's data center in Munich, is a clear commitment to Germany, made for Germany, made in Germany. The factory processes data only in accordance with German law and is only run by German staff. Only the hardware, only the chipset currently does not come from Germany or Europe. Why not? Because unfortunately, we no longer offer this technology on our continent. If that was different, we would also use a European solution here. But NVIDIA has been our partner for a long time. We've worked with them for many years, and that's why we know that we can rely on them. Because for me, sovereignty doesn't mean that we are trying to shut ourselves off. Sovereignty, ladies and gentlemen, means self-determination. And with our AI factory, starting from Deutsche Telekom's connectivity through security of telecom, Deutsche Telekom's Cloud and the software of SAP, all that means that we can give a sovereign answer to European companies when it comes to the question of how do we organize AI in Germany and Europe. Made in Germany, made for Germany. Thank you very much. [Presentation]

My dear shareholders, IMT count on me. Everyone at Deutsche Telekom knows this sentence, and they put it in practice. 2025 was yet another record year. Despite the world becoming more unpredictable, more confusing, you might even say more out of control. There is so much we can no longer rely on, which is why dependability genuinely makes all the difference in these difficult times. 198,079 Deutsche Telekom employees work hard to keep connection secure even in times of crisis, to bring modern technology to everyone and to develop artificial intelligence, and that includes here in Europe. I think all Telekom staff members, thank you, that I can -- thank you for me being able to rely on you, all of you out there. Shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, dependability is no empty promise for us. We prove it daily. Four things you can count on at Deutsche Telekom. First of all, we continue to grow. That's been promised and delivered. For 48 quarters in a row, Telekom has grown. In 2025, revenue was up 4.2%, more than EUR 119 billion. Earnings, up 4.7%, more than EUR 44.2 billion. Free cash flow, up 2%, EUR 19.5 billion, and earnings per share up 5.2%, EUR 2 per share. Ladies and gentlemen, so you can see it. You can see that our strategy works. It has not changed in years. It is dependable. We call it the flywheel, but our strategy isn't complicated. It fits on a beer mat. So take this beer mat back with you. When you get together with your friends, talk about this with them. But every colleague here in this auditorium can tell you about our strategy, even I can. First of all, we invest more than the competition, EUR 16.9 billion last year. That helps us gain new customers, 10 million last year. And if we gain more customers than our competition, we can utilize our network better. We are more efficient, and that allows us to earn more money. And because we earn more money, because we have better utilization, we can invest more. So the flywheel keeps on turning. And it's even gaining momentum more than our competition. But partly powered by data and artificial intelligence, we want to be faster and better, and we have leverage and we leverage economies of scale that our competitors do not have. We draw strength from 2 continents, Europe and the United States, to accelerate this development. We draw strength from 2 continents, Europe and the United States. That is no accident or geography. It's always been our strategic calculation and advantage. We unite stability and dynamism like no other telco globally, and we are growing on both sides of the Atlantic. Just look at the stats. Earnings in Germany, up 1.7%. In the United States, up 5.3%. And especially strong in Europe, up 5.4%. And how did our -- the Chairman of our Supervisory Board's call it yesterday, our rising star, T-Systems, up 14.4%. So we're also reliable when it comes to our dividend. Our proposal is up 11%, EUR 1 per share. We have never paid more than that. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you'll agree to that. I hope I can rely on you. I hope you'll approve our proposal. My dear shareholders, dependability is not only about today's dividend. It's also about how we invest in the future. And this brings me to my second point. We are building the best network, and we've always build the best network. The whole world is talking about AI. But without our infrastructure, AI would not have a voice. Without us, there would be no powerful AI economy in Europe or in the U.S.A. So that is how we make the digital future possible. We actively shape the transformation, not for just the private economy, but for industry as well. How do we do this? AI needs data centers, and we build them. And AI needs networks because that's where what the data flows through and the question of who has the best network, there's actually just one answer to that, isn't there? Last year, we once again won all of the big tests. This morning, connect test, just another one. 12.6 million homes passed in Germany, that's 2.5 million households more than at the end of 2024. And our goal is 25 million homes by 2030 in Germany. And what goes for Germany goes for Europe, where we have -- let's look at Europe where we've built fiber to 11.3 million homes. That's an additional 1.3 million and fiber is also in the United States, what we have opted, what we're pushing, where we have acquired 2 providers, Lumos and Metronet for an investment of EUR 4.8 billion. Our mobile business is also progressing. 5G, for example, 36,450 cell towers are transmitting across Germany from Flensburg to Fussen in the Algoa region in the South. They cover more than 99% of the population with 5G. And in Europe, we achieved around 92%. That's a jump of 15 percentage points. And we lead in the United States, too, with the best 5G network covering around 98% of the population there. Ladies and gentlemen, Deutsche Telekom has the best network. And that always makes the difference. We weren't the worst or the cheapest. We were a premium provider. We were perceived in Germany as having the best network, and that's what really makes the difference in all of our networks throughout the world, and you can rely on that going forward. We will continue to build out our network. We won't stop, and we will fight for every tower. And this brings me to my favorite topic. My favorite topic. My hometown of Solingen, Highway 74. I know it from cycling on it, but it runs through a nature reserve. It's a protected habitat for crested newts and brook lampreys. And they have to say there. They say, and that means no tower by my pond. For years, we've been searching for a solution there. And finally, we have found one. Now a 25-meter tower is transmitting there, on the side of a wastewater treatment plant. And what worked in Solingen, though, unfortunately, won't work everywhere. Some locations remain inaccessible even for us, too boggy, too rocky, too densely forested. That is why we will be enhancing our mobile network with satellite tech connectivity from 2027 on. This will bring coverage to everybody, even where we say good night to crested newts and brook lampreys. Ladies and gentlemen, I love nature. But Germany doesn't need an either/or. It needs as well as flora, fauna and forward progress. I call them the 3 Fs. And that's what we need here. There cannot be a prosperity without progress. And for that, we need the right underlying framework in place here in Germany. The good news is change is afoot. Permits for mobile and fiber are now going faster than ever before. The federal government has finally changed the rules at long last. Thank you. But just when you think it can't get any worse, another law comes around the corner. First example, our competitors are demanding we switch off our copper network. Once they have laid fiber to a locality where we have copper, then they're saying that Deutsche Telekom's copper network has to be switched off. But there's even more. We're supposed to switch our network off, but Vodafone, which offers a cable network, doesn't have to. And it's also copper. So I've built out a network. And if you look at it, that's nothing other than copper. This cable network, this is from the competition here. And why should Deutsche Telekom's copper network be switched off when Vodafone's copper network continue to be used? That's what they're using. I don't get it. And sometimes I wonder what is going on in Germany. We have been pushing for competition in the infrastructure since 1995. Infrastructural competition. And now we want to have new fiber optic monopolies. That doesn't make any sense. It would be better to first everybody to build out fiber and then leave it up to the customers to decide which provider they want to have. Then we would have competition and also customers would have the option to switch from copper to fiber. Here's a second example. Already at present, hundreds of authorities watch over Europe's digital industrial sector. Yet Brussels wants more regulation. The digital network that is being built is leading to more red tape for us. I'm confident that the politicians in Europe and policymakers want the right thing, but Europe will not achieve independence without scale. And that's why we must not micro regulate. That's why we have to allow consolidation here in Europe so that we can compete with the heavyweights from America or China or other markets, so we can keep pace with them. And another thing we need, we need fair competition. The text message is a text message or am I wrong? Whether it's an SMS or a WhatsApp, it's actually the same. Isn't it? Or with self-service through -- if I use a satellite or the mobile network, I'm just phoning, it's the same service. But why is only the telecom industry regulated, but satellites or over-the-top Internet games are not? I'm of the opinion that in this new modern world, with so many applications and technologies, there has to be one rule and one rule only, the same services, the same rules. And that's what I'm pushing for right now in Berlin and in Brussels. Because we have to be -- we have to prepare for the new technologies coming our way. My dear shareholders, the future cannot be an away game. It has to be a home game, and we're attending to this. And you can take that to the bank. And that brings me to my third point. We bring artificial intelligence to people and business. AI, ladies and gentlemen, artificial intelligence is the greatest gift for our economy. Yes, I said, the greatest gift. We can pick up the pace with AI. It can accelerate many tasks that are slow right now. AI could safeguard quality and reduce mistakes. And AI could also help where specialists are in short supply. And that goes especially for Germany as a whole, but it also applies to Deutsche Telekom, which is why we are turning abstract possibilities into concrete reality. AI accelerates. It safeguards quality, and it helps to compensate for the shortage of specialist skills. We use AI in all our areas of the company. AI finds faults in the network and repairs them. It provides summaries. It analyzes markets. It codes, it analyzes markets. It provides legal advice. And ladies and gentlemen, you'll be able to answer the question I'm going about to ask. It can -- it's transcribing the questions you raised today and telecom developed this in the guise of AskT and provides you an answer. So we will finish early today. But ladies and gentlemen, artificial intelligence will never take control for us. Decisions will remain in the hands of people. My dear shareholders, what we do for ourselves, we also do for our customers. And the tools we use, we also make available to you, our customers. That's a huge opportunity for further growth. Let me take another example of consumers. The next level of dependability is the network things, a proactively thinking network. We are reinventing the phone call. This year, because this year, we're building a so-called AI assistant in our network. So when you're telephoning and you need support from AI, you just have to say, just like in your car when you're driving along, hey, Magenta, what -- will the weather be like on the weekend? Can I go for a walk? What's the best restaurant near me? Hey, Magenta, can we make an appointment? And AI will look into your time schedule to see when there's a good date for an appointment. The network translates conversations, if it's another language, and it does that in real time. That's the future, and it's on any device, too. And that means the network is getting smarter, and we'll be able to perform more. And what's really great about this is that it works in the fixed work exactly the same way as it does in the mobile network on any device. It doesn't matter how old the devices are. It's independent of that, whether it's a Nokia 3310, even with its old cell phone, AI works. And that's what I call innovation through artificial intelligence. But don't worry. Security and data privacy have top priority for us. The assistant only responds when it's called upon. And it doesn't store any data, any of your data. Data security is insured in any situation. Let me give you a second example, our business customers. And you know we have almost EUR 15 billion in revenue with business customers. But we want to get better here, too, and that creates extra potential when we use AI here. I showed you the AI factory just a few minutes ago. Every company can use the factory. There's no excuse anymore to say, I don't want to have my computer on a foreign infrastructure. Anybody who wants to work with AI can do it here in Germany. They have complete control over the data, the application and the technology. That is independence made in Germany. But AI is only at the beginning. We will continue to expand it further. And I invite every company in Germany and Europe to use this to seize the opportunities offered by AI. It is making Germany and Europe competitive once again. And you have a dependable partner at your side in Deutsche Telekom, contributing a lot of the components to the system right now. And T-Systems is the reliable partner in this build-out. Ladies and gentlemen, Deutsche Telekom keeps its promises. But nobody, nobody is credible if they claim they never make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. We do too, so do I. And that's why my fourth point is, we keep on learning. I'm going to tell you what I mean with 3 examples. First, broadband in Germany. We underestimated the fiber build-out and how long it would take. It is dragging on. But we are winning customers everywhere, but lost some in our home market of all places, 50,000 in total from 15 million, perhaps not too many. But every customer we lose, that hurts. That's a pain point. And we are solving this by investing even more and by building more fiber, especially in rural areas, because we see that demand, especially in rural areas is greater than in cities. In buildings with multiple dwellings, we often have the problem that customers don't want us to drill in the walls. So we developed a new technology, adhesive cables. This fiber optic cable can simply be stuck along the floor or at the top of the wall. So there's no more drilling through ceilings, no more drilling in the wall. Sticking is the new drilling. Second, B2B business. Competition in this area in Germany is extremely intense. And I'll admit, we were arrogant, too arrogant. We rested on our laurels for too long, relying on old products and also old structures. But that's changing. We're changing it. We don't just sell the best network, but also everything on top. We want to offer the full package as tech partner, storage space in our data centers, security for your data, security developed from the network itself and applications for AI. That's what we want to roll out for our business customers and also, at the same time, develop new potential to generate revenue. Third example, only 24.2% of our managers globally are women. That's not enough. We can be better here, and we need to be better here. Actually, we do a great deal. We have a performance culture, irrespective of gender. Of course, we pay equal salaries for men and women. We offer career networks, especially for women. We have strong role models like Dominique Leroy, who heads our Europe business or Birgit Bohle, our CHRO. And also our CEOs in Czechia and Croatia, Melinda Szabo and Natasa Rapaic, they're women. But we will only solve this problem -- truly solve this problem when we ourselves change. And when I say we, I mean, we men in management. My dear shareholders, every day, we get a little bit better. We've been successful and more successful than any other tech telecom company in Europe for years now. And that's come to feel normal, but it's not. If you look behind the magenta curtain, you'll see that things are getting more difficult for us, too. Costs are rising faster than our prices, because of the intense competition, we can't just pass on costs even though costs are rising from our suppliers. We have to permanently safeguard supply chains where in the past, it was taken for granted that they were secure. For example, we had the crisis with memory chips worldwide. And we need to improve our productivity continuously. That means reduce our costs, produce at lower cost, and we have to continually look to see where T as a brand can set itself off and differentiate itself from the competition. We are the #1, and everybody is shooting for number one. And that means [ at us, ] also new technology, Starlink and new satellite providers could become a threat to our industry if their plans are realized. So dependability is not a given. We have to redouble our efforts to defend this leadership, and it takes hard work. And we are rolling up our shirt sleeves, and we'll continue to grow this year. This brings me to the forecast. This year, we expect earnings of up to be up 6% and to achieve EUR 47.4 billion. With free cash flow, we're planning to grow 3% to EUR 19.8 billion in free cash flow this year. And with earnings per share, we're also planning an increase in 10% to EUR 2.20. So that's good news. That's good news for you, ladies and gentlemen, because you know 40% to 60% of the result we want to pay out to you. So there is good news from the German economy as well. And with all the criticism -- why don't they try to reproduce our results? Why are we successful? It's because of our corporate culture. We call it T-Style. And our corporate culture describes the way we want to be and the way we want to work, T-style. First of all, we want to resolutely cut back the red tape in our company. We map society at telecom and all this red tape in Germany doesn't help anybody. But you have to start at your own company and reduce red tape there. Often, we are not in traffic. We are the traffic, and that's where we need to get better and improve things. Second, radical collaboration. Developing ideas together in this factory here, without mistrust across all areas, across all the countries. Because together, our company can't be beat. And the group is always stronger than the individual. Third, performance. If everyone in their area wants to be #1, that's what will make us a leading digital telco in the world. It may sound abstract to you, but that's day in, day out here, and it has a real impact. At the start of this year, a blackout hit Berlin, the lights went out, because of sabotage on the power grid. And that meant no mobile service either. 29 Deutsche Telekom sites were affected, but our network was back up and running faster than any of our competitors' networks. Why? Because our people were immediately there. They are immediately on site getting on with the job of fixing things. And we gave unlimited data to all of the customers who were affected as a gift, so they could make the necessary arrangements. That's what I think T-style should be all about. Because it's not about the networks. It's not only about networks. It's not only about data centers and AI. It's about we as telecom being dependable. That's the proposition. Because dependability, ladies and gentlemen, that is earned when words align with actions. Dependability comes about when people take responsibility. Dependability comes about when we are there when we are needed. And especially in a world where everything has become more uncertain, this dependability, this T that makes all the difference. Our strong corporate culture has brought us far, but we're not satisfied there. We are more than the telco with the most valuable brand at present. We are a trusted technology partner. We have growth ideas. We digitalize the world with the best networks. And for me and for everyone at this company, IMT count on me. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your remarks, Mr. Hottges. Ladies and gentlemen, this is now a wonderful opportunity to thank the Board of Management and all employees of Deutsche Telekom for their excellent work in the past fiscal year. And I'm doing this, I believe, also on behalf of you, the shareholders. And you applauded, Mr. Hottges. So, I would like to thank you, Mr. Hottges, the Board of Management and all the employees of the company. Ladies and gentlemen, I now give the floor to Dr. Illek to briefly explain the 2025 and 2026 share buyback programs. Mr. Illek?

Yes. Thank you very much. Dear shareholders, in accordance with the requirements of Section 71(3) Sentence 1 of the Stock Corporation Act, I would like to briefly inform you about the share buyback programs. In the year 2025, the share buyback program started on the 3rd of January 2025 and ended on the 11th of December. As part of this share buyback program, a total of 65,412,156 own shares of the company were repurchased. It accounts for a proportionate amount of the share capital of EUR 167,455,119.36, which is approximately 1.3% of the existing share capital. The average purchase price per share was EUR 30.58. The total amount of the share buybacks under the 2025 share buyback program amounted to EUR 1,999,999,212. Most of the Deutsche Telekom shares acquired as part of the 2025 share buyback program will be redeemed. And this will take place at the end of the year, and it is intended to mitigate the dilutive effect. And this will be -- the money will be used to service executive compensation programs and employee share purchase plans. In November of this year, we announced that we would continue to conduct a share buyback program in 2026. The first program has a volume of up to EUR 2 billion. The first tranche began on the 5th of January until the 26th of March, and we acquired 15,598,603 shares. It accounts for a proportionate amount of the share capital, and it corresponds to 0.32% of the existing share capital. The average purchase price per share in the first quarter was EUR 30.22. The total amount of the buybacks of the first tranche amounted to EUR 471,302,675.54. Most of the buyback program will be -- most of the shares in the buyback program will be redeemed in the coming year, and we want to mitigate the dilution effect of the 2021 capital increase, but it's also in line with the capital allocation strategy communicated at the Capital Markets Day 2024. And a small proportion of the acquired shares will be used for executives and employee profit sharing programs. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Mr. Illek, for your explanations. Dear shareholders, this brings me to the Supervisory Board report, which we will find in our annual report starting on Page 8. I would like to give you a brief oral report. I already mentioned that the full report will be found in the annual report. The Supervisory Board continued to closely monitor the management of business by the Board of Management. Last year, we had 36 meetings, 6 plenary sessions, 1 off-site and 29 committee meetings. The participation rate was 97%, and the only people missing were missing because of sickness. The cooperation with the Board was and is very good and based on trust. Due to the high frequency of meetings, we are in close contact with the Board of Management, and we have a regular exchange. The written and oral reports of the Board of Management served as an essential basis for the fulfillment of our statutory monitoring tasks. The Supervisory Board has regularly discussed the current situation of the company at its meetings. The Board of Management has complied with its duty to provide information comprehensively and promptly. The content and scope of the reports met the specified requirements. Between the meetings, the Board also reported on individual questions in writing or in discussions. In addition, I exchanged ideas with the Board of Management and especially the Chairman of the Board of Management, Mr. Hottges. On the basis of its audits and the auditor's report, the Supervisory Board has come to the conclusion that there are no reasons to doubt the appropriateness and effectiveness of the internal control systems established by the Board of Management and the risk and opportunity management system. We discussed and examined in detail the transactions and measures that the Board of Management submitted to us for approval in the 2025 financial year, and we have approved the measures presented in each case. The auditors audited the annual financial statements, the consolidated financial statements as well as the combined management and group management report and issued an unqualified audit opinion in each case. The Board of Management and the auditors explained the financial statements in detail to the Audit and Finance Committee as well as to the full Supervisory Board. The Supervisory Board approved the annual financial statements and the consolidated financial statements after its own review at its meeting on February 25. The annual financial statements are thus adopted. Let me briefly mention the main focus points of the work of the Supervisory Board, and it will not be a surprise, because it's always our focus. Annual and consolidated financial statements, implementation of the group strategy and the development of the segments, and this is what we mainly do in the Strategy, ESG and Innovation Committee, Dividend policy and share buybacks. The market and competitive situation, of course, has kept us busy last year, because of many changes among our competitors. Then the financial and debt situation. Then ESG, environmental, social and corporate governance issues. Of course, we took a look at this, and we saw, as Mr. Hottges mentioned this, how important carbon emissions are -- or the reduction of carbon emissions are for the group. Budget and annual financing plan for 2026 and midterm planning until 2029. Personnel matters, and I will go into the details in a moment. Then the adjustment of Supervisory Board remuneration, I will also discuss this in more detail in a moment, and we will also have a resolution on this topic today. Let me now talk about the situation of the company. The year 2025 was, again, a strong and successful year for Deutsche Telekom, as Mr. Hottges explained, despite strategic and structural challenges in a volatile macroeconomic environment characterized by geopolitical tensions. Revenue, and I would like to repeat this, rose by 4.2% to EUR 119.1 billion. The adjusted EBITDA AL grew strongly by 4.7% to EUR 44.2 billion. The adjusted net income rose by 3.7% to EUR 9.7 billion. Mr. Hottges already explained all these figures in detail. And yesterday, we also said goodbye to 2 Supervisory Board members who came to the Supervisory Board in 2012 and 2013, Mrs. Kollmann and Mr. Streibich, and we compared the figures between 2012 when you joined and today and the figures at least doubled, the share price even quadrupled in this time, and this goes to show the big progress that the company has made. The group is on a growth trajectory and is industry leader. The business developed well in all areas. With its strategy to be the leading digital telecommunications company, Deutsche Telekom is well prepared for the opportunities and challenges of the future. The company has thus laid a very good foundation for further success. The good business result confirms the excellent work of the Board of Management, and I would like to thank Mr. Hottges and his team, but of course, also all the employees for their success. On the basis of the results achieved in 2025, the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board are proposing a dividend of EUR 1 per share in line with the dividend policy. Now it is important to consistently pursue Deutsche Telekom's strategy, which Mr. Hottges has clearly explained. I'm confident that the Board of Management and the employees will continue to demonstrate the strength of Deutsche Telekom. Ladies and gentlemen, I now come to the personnel matters in the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board. As already reported in the annual -- in the last Annual General Meeting, the Supervisory Board made a number of personnel decisions in January 2025. Mr. Hottges was reappointed until the end of 2028, and we are very happy about this. Mr. Gopalan's Board mandate has ended. He is now -- he used to be the Chief Operating Officer at T-Mobile U.S. and is now the CEO of T-Mobile U.S. since November 1. And we are very happy that he is leading this business. As Mr. Gopalan's successor, Mr. Diehl became a Board member of the Board of Management for the German segment, and he is here for the second time, because we already did this in the beginning of last year. Yes, this is worth an applause. This is not in my script, but we are extremely happy with what Mr. Diehl has done for Deutsche Telekom in the past month, although it was a very challenging year. In May of last year, we agreed to the resignation of Mrs. Nemat from the Board of Management at the end of September. Mrs. Nemat had previously stated that she did not want to renew her contract after 14 years on the Board. She used to be a member of the Board of Management responsible for technology and innovation. And I would like to thank her very much for the outstanding work over 14 years. I wish her a great success. She has really shaped the company for a very long time, and I would like to thank her very much indeed. As a successor to Mrs. Nemat, we appointed Dr. Mudesir as of the 1st October 2025. You probably ask, where is he. He is not here today because last week, he said that he wanted to terminate the mandate with immediate effect, and this is why he is not here today. Dr. Mudesir is leaving the company to take on new professional role abroad. I would like to thank Dr. Mudesir for his commitment in the past 8 years and wish him all the best for his future career. Until a successor is found for him, Dr. Illek has taken over the duties of Dr. Mudesir on an interim basis, in addition to his usual function. And I think that as a natural scientist, Mr. Illek also has a very good background in order to successfully lead this segment. And we thus also have continuity in the key area for the group and Deutsche Telekom's strategic orientation remains unchanged. The implementation of the priorities in the Management Board area of Product and Technology will continue seamlessly. This brings me to the Supervisory Board. There were no personnel changes among employee representatives in the last fiscal year. Among the shareholder representatives, there were the following changes. Mrs. Empey, Mrs. Knight and Mr. Ramge were elected to the Supervisory Board by the last AGM. And at the end of this AGM, Mrs. Kollmann and Mr. Streibich will leave the Supervisory Board. At this point, I would like to say very clearly that we are very grateful to Mrs. Kollmann and Mr. Streibich for their excellent work over the past years. And Mrs. Kollmann has chaired the Audit and Finance Committee for a long time, and I also took part in the meetings. She did a wonderful job with great clarity, and she also supported the CFO. So I would like to thank Mrs. Kollmann very much for the work she has done. Mr. Streibich, based on his experience in the IT industry of Software AG has helped us make the company what it is today and also the strategy was influenced by him. So he helped us quite a lot. And you see that we've gotten 2 new candidates today coming from the area, IT technology, AI, and we found good replacements for Mr. Streibich. But nevertheless, I would like to thank you for the excellent work you have done for the company. Thank you very much for the successful work in the past. And of course, I also would like to thank all the other Supervisory Board members for the excellent work. It was always great to work with you. At the end of today's Annual General Meeting, the terms of office of Mr. Wintels and myself will end. And this is why we will propose to the Annual General Meeting that both Mr. Wintels and I will be reelected. We both love these activities, and we would be very grateful if you showed your trust in our work. Furthermore, Dr. Dohmke and Dr. Hottges are proposed for election to the Supervisory Board. Dr. Dohmke is an experienced technology CEO and entrepreneur in the field of software development. He used to chair GitHub, leading global developer platform owned by Microsoft and has extensive leadership experience in a global digital company. He has in-depth know-how in software development and product strategy as an engineer with a doctorate in mechanical engineering and in computer engineering. He combines technological excellence with practical industry experience. He has broad international experience from Europe and U.S.A., and he will introduce himself.

Thank you very much, and good morning. I'm pleased to be here with you in Bonn today and to present myself. I don't come from Bonn. I grew up in Berlin, Marzahn. And while I was still in school, I worked for telecom for 3 weeks in order to equip the installers with what they needed for the work. I studied at the Technical University of Berlin, and I had the first flood with ISDN, and this was really very good for me because I could use the technology. And then I went to Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart, Sindelfingen. So I moved from Berlin to Stuttgart. I met my wife. And in 2007, I really loved the iPhone. I bought an iPhone in Stuttgart. And after my activities in -- at Mercedes and Bosch, I started my own business for mobile applications and developer platforms. In 2014, Microsoft from Redmond in the United States bought my company, the second German company that was ever bought by Microsoft. And with my wife and my 2 children, babies at the time, I moved from Stuttgart to Seattle, where I still live today. Over the past 10 years, I continued the career at Microsoft and now -- and I became CEO of GitHub. You can imagine that this is like the DIY store for software developers. You can buy great equipment there, great material. This is what you get. From GitHub open source software, but you also find a lot of other nerds that you can talk to. And this is exactly what is important for GitHub, not only the software, but the worldwide collaboration. Last summer, I decided to leave Microsoft and GitHub after more than 10 years in order to have my own business again, and I'm now building up a start-up entire to develop more software. When I look back to the past 30 years, starting with the Commodore 64, which I started with, to today, where we have the strongest computer always on us with the smartphone, then I still remember the time before the technology. I know a world without the Internet and now suddenly, we can solve all the problems. I remember the time without a smartphone at the university where we could really work concentratedly with the professors. And I remember a time before the cloud and after the cloud and Mr. Hottges already reported about artificial intelligence a lot. At Microsoft, I was involved in the development of Copilot together with my colleagues and now AI is really a firm part of our world. I really look forward, and I hope that I can support the Supervisory Board with my perspective from the United States right next to the Microsoft headquarters in Bellevue, in Washington, and I look forward to supporting the Supervisory Board with energy, with power, with passion and also with my perspective as a software developer. And now I would like to thank you very much for your attention, and I hope that you will elect me to become a member of the Supervisory Board.

Mr. Dohmke, we are very much looking forward to the cooperation. I'm firmly convinced that the AGM will agree to your election, and we would be very happy about it. You just presented yourself and you showed very clearly why we in the Supervisory Board would be very happy to have you as a member. You will give us a lot of expertise, but you also rejuvenate the Board. And this is also true for the second candidate, Dr. Herzig, who is the member of the extended Board of SAP. As a Chief AI Officer, he implemented the SAP strategy, and it's also part of our AI factory. He has strong qualifications in AI and cloud transformation with his degrees in business informatics and computer science. He combines technological depth and business understanding. He will now introduce himself via the video message.

Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to present myself today as a candidate for being a member of the Supervisory Board. My name is Philipp Herzig and I would like to tell you what is especially important for me. What can technology do today and in the future? How can we gain a lot of good for everybody in the industry and in society? Technology will ensure our -- or will guarantee our wealth and our progress. At SAP, I was allowed to have an end-to-end responsibility for technology, and this has opened my view on technology and helped me how we can tackle our challenges in small steps. As a Chief Technology Officer, I'm now responsible for the entire AI strategy of SAP and I also try to bring various perspectives together as member of the [ Forschungszentrum, ] as a member of the research center for AI and as a member of the working group for living systems. I live in Potsdam, close to Berlin. And I love to travel with my wife and my 3 children and I also love music, acoustics and my e-guitar is not only a hobby but shows how opposites, creativity and technology can best be combined. Because at the end of the day, it's always important to use technology as human beings and I would like to bring technology and human beings together of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom. Deutsche Telekom is the backbone of our economy and is playing a key part in Germany and Europe and beyond. And this a huge opportunity to use data-driven sovereignty in order to create long-term value for Deutsche Telekom, the employees and owners. It would be a great honor and responsibility to support Deutsche Telekom in the Supervisory Board on its path, successful path in the future. And I would be extremely happy if you entrusted me with this job, and I wish you a good AGM.

Well, now what I said regarding Mr. Dohmke is also true for Dr. Herzig. We are very happy to propose him today. He is even younger than Mr. Dohmke, and this will definitely help us on our path. He brings exactly the qualifications that we lost with Mr. Streibich and Mr. Hinrichs last year. Only he is younger, and this will definitely also help us a lot. So I would be extremely pleased if the 4 proposals could find your approval today. And at this point, I can also tell you that we already won 2 women last year. So this year, we were free. We did not have to meet any women's quotas, and we looked around in order to find highly qualified people with a lot of experience in the United States as Mr. Dohmke is showing. The CVs of the candidates can be found in the invitation. And now I can only tell you that the Supervisory Board thinks that the candidates are excellent and they also, of course, are in line with the competency and qualification profiles. This brings me to corporate governance. As you can see from the annual report, Deutsche Telekom complied with the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code in 2025 with the exception of one deviation last year. This was about the early reappointment of Mr. Hottges, for which we felt that there were special circumstances. In fiscal year 2026, Deutsche Telekom will fully comply with the code's recommendations. Finally, I would like to briefly talk about the Supervisory Board compensation. Under agenda Item 9, we propose that the remuneration of the Supervisory Board to be adjusted. We reviewed the appropriateness and customary nature of the current remuneration and the audit has shown that the current structure of the compensation is customary and sensible. The structure will, therefore, remain unchanged. A comparison with other DAX companies, however, has shown that Deutsche Telekom Supervisory Board compensation is too low in relation to its size and importance. Against this background, the Supervisory Board considers an increase necessary. The individual proposed adjustments can be found in the invitation under agenda Item 9. For example, the basic remuneration is to increase from EUR 100,000 to EUR 115,000. Ladies and gentlemen, let me summarize. The financial year 2025 was successful. The Supervisory Board closely monitors the work of the Board of Management on the basis of a legally compliant and effective corporate governance. Deutsche Telekom is strategically well aligned operationally clearly on course for growth and in a good financial position due to a solid balance sheet and a strong free cash flow. So the Board of Management has laid a good foundation for mastering future challenges. Dear shareholders, thank you very much for your attention and the Supervisory Board report. I will now call the agenda Items 2 through 11. Please refer to the invitation to the Annual General Meeting published in the Federal Gazette for the wording of these agenda items and the corresponding proposed resolution from the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board. With regard to agenda Item 2, I would like to add the following. As part of share matching plans, treasury shares, that is shares of the company were transferred to planned participants during the current financial year. In addition, the company repurchased treasury shares, as you've heard before. As a result, the total number of shares entitled to dividends has decreased compared to the figures stated in the invitation. The Management Board and Supervisory Board have therefore adjusted their proposed resolution for agenda Item 2 as announced in the invitation to the AGM for this scenario. Management Board and Supervisory Board accordingly proposed the following resolution. The net income of EUR 27,950,505,361.03 generated in the 2025 financial year shall be appropriated as follows: distribution of a dividend of EUR 1 per dividend-bearing share totaling EUR 4,822,437,582 (sic) [ EUR 4,829,175,330 ] and carryover of the remaining amount to new account amounting to EUR 23,128,067,779.03 (sic) [ 23,121,330,031.03 ]. The proposed resolution on the appropriation of profits as amended is available for review on the company's website and at the information desk. I will now announce the current attendance numbers of shareholders present. So attendance at the AGM of Deutsche Telekom, 3,432,520,800 shares, which corresponds to EUR 8,787,247,000. That's EUR 12 billion share capital. Also mail in votes of 29,859,000 shares were received. So 3,452,377,805 individual shares are present or represented by mail in votes, which corresponds to 70.38% of the share capital. This brings me to the general debate. I have a few organizational remarks. As the Chair of the meeting, I am guided by the German Corporate Governance Code, which stipulates that an AGM should conclude after no more than 4 to 6 hours. With this in mind, I will ensure that today's Annual General Meeting proceeds efficiently. To ensure that we serve the interest of all shareholders present and in light of the requests for the floor, which are already over 20, I am limiting speaking and question time from the outset to 10 minutes per speaker. Please stick to this time allotment. Experience here and at other AGMs has shown that 10 minutes should be sufficient to adequately address even complex issues. You will be informed about the progress of your speaking and question time via the display attached to the lectern. If the progress of the meeting makes it necessary, I will further limit the speaking and question time. The Management Board will answer questions after a small number of speakers have asked their questions. I will personally answer questions that are directed to the Supervisory Board. The Management Board has stated that to the extent it does not disagree with my answers, it will endorse them. Questions having identical content and those on closely related topics from different shareholders will be answered only once in a summary form in the interest of all shareholders and to maintain the focus of the meeting. I would like to ask shareholders who have a personal concern as customers of this company not to raise this during the general discussion, but to contact customer service representatives instead. Please visit the customer service desk in the lobby on the entrance level. In the interest of all shareholders, we will not answer questions that are not relevant to the agenda during the general discussion.

So this brings me to the first block of questions. Ingo Speich, is first. Analyst, Schmidt and Mr. Henrik Pontzen. Mr. Speich, the floor is yours.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ingo Speich. I represent Deka Investment, one of the big funds in Germany and a subsidiary of DekaBank. It's great to be here at the lectern in Bonn. And just looking around here, it's not just myself who is pleased about this physical meeting, but also the many shareholders who have come to this meeting. Only in this way can we have a real dialogue, which is indispensable for shareholder culture in Germany. The past 12 months for us, shareholders have been nerve racking. The fluctuations of the share price were immense. If you look at the share price development, we are slightly below the level of last year's AGM, including the dividend. The STOXX 600 Index in this time actually is 20% higher than German Telecom's share price. As a long-term investor, after the strong increase of the previous years, we can live with this. Telecom has proven that it has a growth DNA. Mr. Hottges, you made this impressively clear today. But our core question is, where is the high growth supposed to come from in the next few years? For the future viability of German telecom, we see 4 key issues. First, expansion and competitiveness of T-Mobile in the United States; secondly, the future of your German business; third, sustainability; and fourth, succession planning and the future Supervisory Board and Management Board. On T-Mobile U.S., the systematic positioning and growth in the U.S. fulfill our growth ideas. T-Mobile has grown from an underdog to one of the most modern and most successful mobile networks, is a major success. More than 2/3 of Deutsche Telekom's cash flow come from the U.S. Dependency is enormous, and there are some clouds gathering on the U.S. market. There is more uncertainty and this high level of dependency are an explosive mix. Now T-Mobile is now basically top dog in the U.S. market, but more investments have to be made into fiber and the mobile network and also fixed wireless. There have been some important incentives from this part of the business, but there can be limits to the growth in the next 5 years. If there are new players like Starlink, for example, other tech companies will have a growing interest in resources and satellite-based communication. What specific spectrum strategy are you pursuing in order to safeguard your leadership position, especially against the backdrop of new competitors, also satellite competitors? How can you make sure that profitable growth will continue, not just in the case of T-Mobile U.S.? Let's look at Germany. Deutsche Telekom has established a very strong brand, which is associated in many customers' minds with reliability and dependence. And many customers are willing to pay a premium price for this. However, the environment is more complicated and DSL rates, for example, are very much affected by this. Can you show how the Net Promoter Score has developed in Germany over the past few years and what targets you have set yourself in the context of recent price increases? When have you reached the end of this strategy? In terms of fiber build-out, we see German telecom as a real pioneer in Germany. But for us, investors, what's most important to us is not to have fiber installed, but really connected to the home and also upselling into higher rates is an important growth driver, but also a foundation for better efficiency. So here, we support your target to abandon the old copper cables. But what's your road map for the shutting off of copper in Germany in terms of time line, also in terms of regulatory requirements? And what will be the cost effects for the new fiber networks? Another hotly debated issue at the capital market is capital allocation of Deutsche Telekom, especially the ratio of investment and share buybacks. In the past, you did an impressive balancing act, massive investment into networks and on the other hand, reliable payouts and your share buyback program. Against the backdrop of high investment in 5G, fiber and IT platforms, for long-term investors like ourselves, the question is, how do you prioritize your means? Growth investment continued dividends and further share buybacks. How are you going to balance this? And what are your KPIs for this? Also, the leverage ratio is relevant against the backdrop of your high investment. Now will your growth remain robust? What happens if T-Mobile gets into stormy waters, then you will face the question of whether to do without the cash flow generated in the U.S. or to reduce your equity investment? Now Deutsche Telekom is a leading international telco and also highlights digitalization and use of AI. You've pointed out many use cases of AI, both in internal and external processes. For Deutsche Telekom, these technology examples have to make a clear contribution also to the bottom line. What is the specific contribution that all of this can make to your bottom line and to further efficiency? And how do you measure these contributions internally? Ladies and gentlemen, let's move on to sustainability. You're all following developments in the U.S., I'm sure, withdrawal from international climate agreements and an abandonment of climate protection policies. Now we are wondering today how these changes initiated by the U.S. government impact Deutsche Telekom, especially in terms of climate and diversity? Have you made any adjustments in the past 12 months regarding this? If yes, which? Are you still committed to your diversity policy? We welcome the voluntary reporting in the past financial year according to the new standards. Now are you going to put diversity and climate on the agenda of next year's AGM? Then this would highlight your climate strategy, would stand a strong message to the public and also to us as investors and other stakeholders. Ladies and gentlemen, let's move on to management succession and governance. Good governance means to have a timely succession planning to have it transparent and international. Mr. Diehl, the new Head of German business, this is the first beginning, but succession in other positions remains a key issue. Mr. Hottges, you have left an imprint on telecom, very successful imprint and have shaped the company. You have to do some careful planning to find a successor for you. This will be an important part of your responsibilities also of the Supervisory Board. So my question to Supervisory Board is, how detailed is your succession planning for a successor to Mr. Hottges and other leadership positions? How can you make sure that Telecom's successful path will be continued in the future? And finally, on our voting behavior, as in the past year, we will vote against ratification of the actions of the Management Board. And also the Audit Committee, we didn't consider it to be independent against the backdrop of the very complex balance sheet structure, the Audit Committee plays a special role. So we are going to -- not to ratify the actions of the Supervisory Board. We welcome the new candidates to the Supervisory Board, because this will strengthen our or your U.S. expertise, meeting some of our conditions. Also, you're rejuvenating the Supervisory Board. We agree with you, Dr. Appel, when you said that to reappoint you to the Chair of the Supervisory Board, but you have 2 other mandates. So Mr. Wintels also has one mandate to many. With regard to other agenda items, we agree with the proposed resolutions of the Management Board. So we from Deka Investment, wish all of you at Deutsche Telekom the best of success in your decisions and hope to see you again next year here in Bonn.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speich, for your comments and your questions. Henrik Schmidt from DWS Investment is next. So Mr. Speich, I forgot to mention that we've known each other for a long time. And so Mr. Schmidt from DWS.

Dr. Appel, you just introduced me. Mr. Hottges, other members of the Board, dear shareholders. In your comments, you made clear that we had another record year or you had another record year organic growth. You continued that. And also for 2026, the company expects further growth. Now here, Deutsche Telekom from the perspective of portfolio management is a cash flow compounder, a company that boosts its earnings by reinvesting these earnings into its own business. And this is exactly what you have visualized through this beer mat and the flywheel. So I submitted my questions beforehand, but I'd like to read them out anyway. I hope I can stay within my time allotment. Brand value is remarkable. For the fourth time, Deutsche Telekom is the most valuable German brand, has defended this position. So congratulations on this. But of course, you've laid the bar very high. So the dividend of EUR 1 per share is another record along with the share buyback program. This is a clear message really for the long-term profitability of the company. All of this is only possible due to your commitment in the Supervisory Board and the Management Board, but also, of course, to the commitment of the 200,000 employees. Many of you have thanked your employees already, but let me repeat this again. And let me emphasize this and please pass on this to the employees. Now in terms of strategy, I think you should keep pursuing cybersecurity and governance, but also cash flow generation and capital allocation and also the monetization of your fiber build-out in Germany, including your price setting power. And my first questions are related to this. How are you planning to use the surplus cash flow? And what are your priorities here like compared to competitors in the industry, your capital spend is relatively high. There's high investment requirement. So what are your priorities for your investment plans? And do you think that the ratio that you have right now will be continued? Monetization of the fiber build-out. We're interested in the drivers of service growth. What parameters determine your strategy for 2026? How do you evaluate price elasticity of consumers? And how can you accelerate the MDU access and also improve services for users? You showed us the adhesive fiber or adhesive cables. What other ideas do you have? What are the 3 biggest bottlenecks in terms of MDU penetration? Cybersecurity governance, hacker attacks have been the issue at several other AGMs. The EU has imposed strict regulations on companies in terms of cybersecurity and is now really committed to this security. Now in the case of Deutsche Telekom, who bears overall responsibility for cybersecurity? How do you measure this performance? And how do you escalate this to the Supervisory Board? How do you prepare for the NES to update of this regulation in terms of your internal processes? And my second question is the Digital Network Act that you already mentioned and its impact on your scaling strategy, which elements are most relevant for Deutsche Telekom single passport authorization or the reduced administrative effort. What time horizon are you planning with? And will DNR extend or have an impact on your consolidation in Europe? And the Gigabit Infrastructure Act third, which has been in force since October last year, simplified -- enabled simplified procedures. What measurable effects do you expect for the fiber build-out in Germany? What are your targets? And where do you see despite immediate practicability, where do you see friction? Mr. Hottges, you spent some time on this in your talk. Now there are some antitrust proceedings that are going on, a total of 7, which I mentioned in the management report, 6 of these proceedings you already reported on. And the cable channel facilities. I would like to get an update from you on that. What is new, is an action -- a class action suit against German Telecom in the U.S. and T-Mobile U.S. and member of the Supervisory Board of T-Mobile in the U.S. and which is linked to the share buyback program and the remuneration program of the company of T-Mobile. Can you give us an update on the current proceedings and the dispute in value and how you're going to share the cost between Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile and the Board of Directors of T-Mobile in the U.S.? And how long do you think these proceedings will take place? Let's talk about corporate governance and Dr. Appel, you've established a dialogue for that. One thing was already mentioned and you addressed it yourself. As per yesterday, a gap emerged on the Board of Management because Dr. Mudesir left the Board, who had only taken on responsibility for products and technology in October. So from our point of view, this is one of the central posts on the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom. Dr. Illek, thank you very much for taking over responsibility for this important field on an interim basis. But this is of central importance and certainly, therefore, not a long-term solution. So my question to the Board is, the General Committee that is responsible for appointing the members to the Board, wouldn't that have been possible for the General Committee to foresee what would happen? Did the General Committee fail to assess Dr. Mudesir's commitment to the company in the right way? And I mean, what is the company that Dr. Mudesir is working for now? Is it possibly a competitor of Deutsche Telekom? So has the Supervisory Board, has the General Committee looked into that? And -- why is it that the CFO is now responsible for Dr. Mudesir's previous field of responsibility on an interim basis? I'm going to skip a couple of things for reasons of time. I would just like to reiterate what Mr. Speich said with regards to the independence of the Audit Committee. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Mrs. Kollmann and Mr. Streibich for the multiyears of work for the Audit Committee, even though we sometimes disagreed on things. But we would like to know who will be the new members of the Audit Committee from now on? And yes, Mr. Wintels, we voted for you in 2020, but will no longer be able to do it because of the current setup of mandates. Mr. Dohmke's reelection is something we approve. Thank you for the personal introduction. It would be nice if Mr. Herzig had done the same. Now that we gather here, that would have been a good opportunity. And Dr. Appel, we will also vote for your reelection. I would like to state though that the Supervisory Board is losing a female member, and it doesn't look as if that post will be refilled with another woman. I would also like to know more about the absence of some of the members, Mr. Empey, Mr. Ploss, Mr. Wintels, Mr. Schottke, Mrs. [indiscernible] and Mrs. Marx. They weren't able to attend some of the meetings that would be -- we would like to know what meetings did they not attend, what were the resolutions taken there and what were the reasons these gentlemen weren't able to attend? And what we need is a varied reporting, and we -- I have 3 final questions. First of all, on the subject of capital increase. Are there any specific plans regarding the appropriation of this capital? What are the plans of the Management Board? Is Deutsche Telekom planning to acquire a company or a stake in a company or various companies that would justify this capital increase? That doesn't seem to be the case from our point of view, but we will abstain this vote as we did previously. Then on the remuneration of the Board of Management. You explained how the benchmarking works. And in terms of the amounts involved, it is more or less acceptable, but we believe that maybe it would have been good to introduce a rule that would have more or less forced shareholder representatives to acquire shares. Has this been discussed? If so, what is the result? That brings me to the end of my talk. We are going to approve all items on the agenda with the exception of the election of Mr. Wintels and the granting discharge to the Supervisory Board. I would like to thank you for listening, ladies and gentlemen, and I would like to wish the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board every success for their future work. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That brings us to Henrik Pontzen from Union Invest, after which time, we will answer the first questions. Then followed by Frederik Beckendorff.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Henrik Pontzen. And in Union Investment Portfolio Management, I'm responsible for sustainability and active shareholders. We represent Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken, one of the big telecom shareholders, and we represent the interest of our 6 million investors. First of all, let me say that it feels good to be on bond here today. This -- the face-to-face AGMs of Deutsche Telekom are a very positive signal for the shareholder democracy in Germany. In fact, this is an anniversary, because it is the 30th year of the T-Share. And Telecom has come a long way from a previous state enterprise to a global champion. Last year, we already celebrated a sensational outperformance. The telecom was developing much better than the DAX and the stock market overall. But over the past 12 months, we have gone through a rough patch as telecom shareholders. And I must say that we are kind of spoiled. While the telecoms sector grew by 20%, the T-share came out at a negative return. The reasons for this trend are quite clear from our point of view. First of all, a massive insecurity in the U.S. because of a new competitive dynamics in the context of Verizon. Secondly, a major price battle, which goes at the expense of margins, not just in the U.S. but also in the German mobile communications business. And thirdly, not enough new customers in the broadband business. Mr. Hottges, you are the conductor based in Bonn, but most of the music is actually played in the U.S. T-Mobile U.S. accounts for more than 50% of Deutsche Telekom's earnings, which makes it the central growth engine. But you kept your call in a tough market environment. So you're under pressure. And if that -- even though this pressure might have been the reason for the negative impact on our share price, I still appreciate how you handle this pressure. Thank you. Long-term success, however, requires not just to keep your cool, but also to be longsighted. Competitors in the U.S. bank on convergence of fixed and mobile networks. So the question is, what is the reach of your optical fiber footprint in the U.S.? Is it enough to keep up with AT&T and Verizon in the long run? Don't you think you have to be much bolder in order to safeguard your position as a quality leader. In this context, we can see that there is a new dynamic. Broadband access through satellites. And that's why we would like to ask what growth are you hoping to achieve as a result of your cooperation with Starlink T-satellite in the U.S.? And what are the possibilities you see to expand this cooperation beyond filling white spots? Now the fiber rollout is supposed to be completed by 2030 in Germany, by which time copper lines become history, which means that processes become more efficient and waiting times are cut short. Our question is, if you want to achieve this network rollout goal, what will this mean operationally speaking? Is this going to be a highly efficient new cash flow machine? If you want to retain your customers, you need to remain quality leader. And we share your pain, Mr. Hottges, about every -- and any customer you're losing. That's why it's important to focus on that. Now as we are competing for customers, reliability plays a major role. Do you think that the current media content strategy will suffice to reduce customer churn even further? Or do you think that you need -- that you should maybe invest more in content? We generally support companies that are reliable in how they are pursuing goals and how -- and know how to handle transformation. Deutsche Telekom can do that. And Deutsche Telekom plays a key role for the digital sovereignty of Europe. In this context, we are interested in 3 things. First of all, the protection of critical infrastructure. By setting up European data centers, Deutsche Telekom pursues the important goal of achieving digital sovereignty in Europe. But this makes the company also more vulnerable to cyber attacks. So Mr. Hottges, how are you further developing your cybersecurity strategy? How are you using AI to meet the increasing threats in the cyber space? What specific measures are you taking to protect your infrastructure against any such attacks? Now I heard that customers affected by such attacks were given unlimited data immediately. I have a lot of respect for that. I really liked it. But the question is, how can we prevent that sort of thing from happening in the first place? Secondly, as for your data centers and the carbon footprint, now you said that compared to 2017, you've improved your carbon footprint by 94% and 97%, respectively. That wasn't easy, but you achieved it anyway. Congratulations. Number 2 in our DAX climate study. That's where you came in, and that's a great result, but AI eats up a lot of resources. So how do you make sure that all the energy needed by your data centers can actually be found? And how can this be brought in line with your climate goals? And getting back to the Eisbach in Munich, are you making any investments in water management? Because it's not just electricity, cooling also represents a challenge here. Thirdly, social matters. In the U.S., we see that diversity goals are becoming less important, which is extremely worrying. And at the same time, you have a limited number of women managers. We've talked about this before, and you once said that us, men need to change things, in particular, to change the situation overall also for women. So my question to you is, what have you changed? We accept and we understand that you had to take measures to minimize legal risks. But we don't really understand the background to your decision. Did the U.S. administration put you under pressure to reduce your environmental goals in order to -- for other concessions? If so, how did you handle it? Did you even go beyond it? And how do you look at initiatives to attract new staff in the face of demographic change? We believe it's good to risk -- to manage risks with a view to the future, but at the same time, we should not exert too much pressure. And you should not let up when you're facing headwind for the first time. We need to stick to our guns, so to speak, show the right attitude even when under pressure. Now let's return to the agenda. We grant this charge to the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board. And with 2 exceptions, we will approve all items. As proposed by the management, 7B and 8 are the items that we do not support. That is the election of Mr. Wintels, because he holds too many mandates, and we will vote against the creation of the approved capital in the proposed amount, because we believe that this amount is too high. Mr. Hottges, you have paved the way for the company in a good way in a difficult environment. Now it was a difficult year, but you did a good job, and that's why I'm not being too critical in my speech here today. Now we need to harvest. We believe that the best times are still ahead for Deutsche Telekom if the fiber rollout in Germany becomes a success and T-Mobile U.S. remains the growth engine it currently is, make sure that you make the most of it. Finally, we would like to thank all staff for their commitment, and we wish you the best of luck. Now IMT count on me. This is something that we really need to put into practice, and it actually already feels as if this is the case. I would like to thank you all for listening, and I wish us all an interesting and insightful AGM. Thank you.

Now that brings us to the first round of answers. We used to have 5 speakers in a row, but this time, we're going to do it differently, which is why Mr. Hottges, Mr. Illek and myself will now answer a couple of questions directly rather than wait for the back office to answer all the questions. Frederik Beckendorff will be the speaker afterwards. And then there will be 2 more speakers, after this round of answers. [ Alexander Mu and Mr. Bakovic. ] So I need to take a look at my notes here. Let me start with a question raised by Mr. Speich. You asked me the following question. Dr. Appel, our question to the Supervisory Board is, what does your specific succession planning look like for the Board of Management? How do you make sure that Deutsche Telekom's specific culture will be maintained for the next management generation? Well, first of all, the Supervisory Board's most important task is to select the right staff and members. And that holds true for my role, in particular, which is why we are investing a lot of time on that. We define the relevant criteria that describe the skills that the relevant members need to bring. Then we discuss things with Mr. Hottges, and we draw up a short list of names. Then I hold talks with some of these people myself. I regularly arrange meetings with the managers from the second management level, even if there are not candidates. And this is the basis for our decision. And number four, we regularly examine the external market to see if there are any possible candidates for vacant positions. So in our succession planning, we look at in-house candidates and possible external candidates that we would only address, of course, if it becomes more tangible. That's the process. And Mr. [indiscernible], Mr. Diehl and Mr. Mudesir are 3 examples of in-house candidates. All 3 candidates have also held talks with me before. That's what the process looks like, and we'll continue along these lines. The -- of course, Mr. Hottges is facing a particular challenge here. But you might want to trust that the Supervisory Board has enough experience to handle this. I'm very confident. And I think that's all we can say about any such staff matters in public. So that was Mr. Speich's question to me. Can I ask Mr. Hottges to answer another question from Mr. Speich. And I am also slightly digital, so I can maybe assist a little bit here.

Yes. Everything is new and digital here and really going on AI. You asked about future growth. And first of all, the core business of telecom in the future will remain fiber optic and mobile. In Germany, we're expecting growing revenue, both in mobile and fixed network, and we're continuing to build out the fixed network to cover 99% of the population, and we're building 5 million connections a year in fiber. So of course, that's a growth engine for the company as well. And also, it provides long-term revenue. And we're talking about a cycle of 20 years plus, which this infrastructure will be used. And organic growth of the group, we want on the basis of our infrastructure to generate 4% growth globally with adjusted EBIT 4% growth. And we -- the target for free cash flow up to 2027 is EUR 21 billion. We want to expand it to that level. So the core business is clear. But above and beyond this, we noted that we see additional growth opportunities through investment in technology. Then we have cloud and of course, the digital business, especially B2B, where we see certain value growth possibilities. Let's take the cloud and digital solutions, first of all. There, we're developing in the company, but for other companies and also in T-Systems for our B2B customers, the public cloud solutions and digital solutions for so-called classifieds. These are companies that want -- need very high -- very highly secure data protection, but also the public health insurance schemes and the public and the government authorities. Also, we're offering data centers and see a lot of additional growth potential there. In the U.S., we have a takeover strategy where we're looking for fiber optic companies. We've already taken over a couple of them, Metronet and Lumos, and we will -- Lumos, and we'll continue to take over others if we see an opportunity not only to grow or -- so we won't only grow organically in the U.S., we'll also grow through takeovers. We bought U.S. Cellular and have integrated it. That offers new growth potential in that segment as well in a market segment, where we weren't before. And then other companies are Bliss and Vistra, they do digital media business there. And the advertising market is digitizing in the U.S. as well. And the networking of these digital -- of these assets in America will be supported by us as well. So in America, a very clear goal is to build out the fiber optic joint venture to provide substitute products in 5G network. And we're going to see conversion there. Also another takeover for 2 million, DT Capital Partners provide capital technology, and we want to invest in that. This helps us to expand capacities and acquire the know-how that's lacking in the company by buying external partners or cooperating with them. This helps us become more productive, but also to offer customers new business like cybersecurity products or network devices, IoT devices, including drones. Well, drones is another topic that's interesting for us. So we want to increasingly become a digital enabler, a digital partner in the B2B sector and especially in the B2B sector of T-Systems, but also for Germany and Europe. We see growth potential there as well. And that accounts for the 4% figure, I've mentioned it. You asked about the spectrum strategy in the U.S. And the question was how can we grow profitably in the U.S. and really secure this. We have a 600 megahertz spectrum in the U.S. That's quite a bit. We have additional spectrum in the middle frequencies, including 2, the frequencies awarded in 2024. There, we're building out the network in a targeted way for the non-experts there, the communication spectrum is what we base our mobile architecture on, and you need properties to do that. The more properties you have, the more you can build. So we're building a lot of spectrum there where we want to offer mobile communications so that we can offer this to customers there. On top of this, in the U.S. We have additional spectrum in so-called -- in the so-called low-band area in the U.S., which we've acquired. The future investment and expansion of spectrum depends, of course, on what spectrum will be up for sale. And in 2027, there will be a major acquisition coming up, C-band, it's called. And we're working on the 2.7 gigahertz band when it's offered in the U.S., we'll take part in both of the auctions in 2027 and 2028 to expand our market position there. For us, the leading spectrum position is one of the strategic features that differentiate us from the competition, especially in the U.S. Also a question about the satellite competition, how we're dealing with that and tech competition. Satellite solutions are in addition to our mobile and fixed network offering. In the U.S., we've already -- in 2024, we entered into a partnership with Starlink. And given this -- on this basis in the U.S., we have a certain service. 30% of the territory in the U.S. doesn't have -- isn't covered at all by mobile communications. So these devices, mobile devices have a direct-to-sell integration feature with the aid of satellites. So we entered into this partnership, and we expanded it this year to Europe. So Starlink will also be -- we will be offering it in Europe as well. And in the next generation, it will probably be 2028, satellite integration will be -- satellite features will be integrated in mobile devices. And our strategy for the satellite operators is to send a signal from the S-band and Q-band of satellites. And if somebody doesn't have any spectrum, we can think about either leasing them spectrum, because we'll -- then they'll be able to have spectrum that they can use with Starlink. We did that in the U.S., the first generation, but now Starlink has its own spectrum. So that probably won't be necessary in the U.S. going forward. So I would end my answer to that question here, and Christian can take over.

Yes, Mr. Speich asked about the capital allocation for stock buybacks and continuity and what's happening in the interest environment. Let me start with the capital allocation and talk about the structure we used in the capital market. In the medium-term planning, we've gone -- we've assumed a growth of 4% to 6% and the forecast for this year is at the upper end for this year, 6%. And we have a very clearly communicated shareholders' remuneration of [ 2.5 ] and net debt of 2.5. And at the end of the year, we are at 2.62. In the hierarchy, we said the most important thing is to keep -- maintain the competitiveness of the situation of the company. That's why we said 21% of service revenue will be reinvested in the business to acquire spectrum, for example. Then our dividend policy is 40% to 60% of adjusted EBIT per share. Last year, it was 50%. So we've always been kind of in the middle over the last few years, hovering around 50%. Then there's the topic of, do we do stock buybacks on the [ DT ] side or do we do it on the T-Mobile U.S. side. We have never set long-term priorities, because it depends on a lot of factors. First of all, the share price in the U.S. and how it develops when it's really attractive, then we want to do some buybacks in the U.S. And then also in terms of the hierarchy, investment in our own business, then dividends and then share buybacks in the U.S. And we're somewhat exposed to interest hikes. I don't know if you have been following developments in America, they have about -- we have about EUR 10 billion buffer in our planning for that in the U.S., even though -- and we haven't spent this money yet. So I would say our interest planning contingencies are conservative. And I don't see any major risks right now. And we can always then adjust other things like share buybacks, buybacks and dividends. And then a question was from Mr. Schmidt going in the same direction, focuses focal points of investment and 21% was CapEx to service revenue ratio. That's EUR 17 billion investment, EUR 5.9 billion alone in Germany. So you see the magnitude of our activities and investments in the German market. Mr. Schmidt asked what we would do with surplus cash on hand. We have an ongoing dividend policy of 40% to 60% of adjusted EBIT per share, and we'll use surplus for share buybacks on the U.S. side or on the DT side. And of course, if -- we'll discuss this when it becomes relevant. But when you have an attractive target for an acquisition, well, then we'll make a move. And at the heart of it all is a focus on increasing value for our shareholders. We talked about fiber being a long-term investment, but we want to produce a ROCE that's above the capital cost every year. And the next question regarded, what are we planning with regard to capital measures? And if we have any M&As? No. We have just an omnibus resolution on the agenda. And our policy is that we don't talk about M&A too early. Only when we've signed a deal, and we don't announce it either. So -- but you don't need to expect any major acquisitions right now. You asked about the Net Promoter Score and price hikes. First of all, the development with Promoter Scores, this is a metric which measures customer satisfaction for all products, for all situations at the company. So there's not just one Net Promoter Score. There's a whole bunch of metrics that are part of this. Net Promoter Score is -- we've been measuring that throughout the group since 2021. And we know that -- and you know that customer satisfaction is a main target for us and the management is paid according to this metric. So it's important to the company. It's a central steering instrument. And there, we measure loyalty of customers as well and willingness to invest in our products or services. And this is -- these are derived from this metric. So -- and to just mention a few of these metrics, we don't look at the competition. We're better than the competition in every category. We're oriented towards the Internet companies like Apple, because they have very high customer satisfaction rates. We're talking about 50. That's the goal we have. The Net Promoter Score. I don't want to go into detail here. Of course, we could do a deep dive on that, but we are -- we look at quality aspects like how customers -- how satisfied they are with customer-friendly digital services. And that's the standard for our internal metric, and it's been rising continuously over the last few years, including in target systems. There, we have very high standards, very high targets for the coming years. And in addition, we analyze the prices of the competition and their promotional offers and how customers react to these. Of course, this depends heavily on the features in the market and the competition as well as the communication of their price change that they carry out. So there's a certain mix there, but our claim is to be #1 and also to be better than the telcos, the other telcos, but also be at the level of the Internet groups. The next question you asked was about a road map for the switching off of copper in Germany and CO2 cost effects that we expect from that through the migration to purely fiber optic networks. At present, there's not any regional or national switch-off date for the copper network. Section 34 of the Telecommunications Act stipulates that there is to be a smooth transition from copper to fiber optic. And we are opposed to a mandatory shutdown of the copper network for various reasons. We can only do that, of course, after we have a fiber optic infrastructure. There are customers that like the old infrastructure and prefer it, and that's why mandatory switch -- off switching, we think that, that would create unnecessary bureaucracy in red tape. No, switching -- and I'm talking about these gray cabinets you have in a district. You have to switch all these over to fiber optic everywhere before we can switch off the copper network. And because of the high amount of usage we have of our copper network right now, we haven't completely switched over these switching stations yet. So we, of course, want to migrate in many areas to fiber optics by 2030, and we will be switching off several of these switching stations, but I can't give you an exact date for that. It's important that all our customers in Germany are supplied with our network, the entire time. We expect over the long term for this migration to take place. And we're also expecting savings in maintenance and energy consumption over the long term because we'll be able to switch off some of these networks, which will allow us to reduce costs significantly. And this will also lead to a decline in CO2 emissions. That will help us achieve our goal of net zero emissions from Scope 2 to -- Scope 1 to Scope 3 by 2030. Right now, we're working on setting up the fiber optic infrastructure and making sure that parallel to this, we still have the copper infrastructure. And before it switched off, we don't have any reductions on -- and we haven't taken into account any cost reductions. And another question was the contribution we expect from digitization and AI to productivity and reduction in cost and service quality in the next 3 to 5 years and how we measure these contributions. That's, of course, one of the most important questions we're facing in the company right now. And I'd like to really stress AI is not there only to reduce costs and boost productivity. With AI, we can serve our customers better more effectively and our services can be improved. We can be -- we're able to put our products faster on the market, and we can enhance productivity in our markets. So productivity and costs are only one side of AI. By 2027, we expect EUR 800 million in cost effects in Germany and Europe by 2028 through fewer calls, telephone calls, fewer processing times in call centers. Automation will lead to productivity gains and network planning in field service -- in the field service and IT and the production of software will realize savings as well. Also concrete efficiency gains in day-to-day business that can already be measured today. I can give you an example of this. In the tech process, there's the so-called line technology. And there, we've been able to reduce processing time by the use of agents from 225 seconds per connection to 9 seconds. Just to give you a feeling for this. And another example is customer questions and service. 480 was the average with the support of AI has been reduced to 300. And through the use of our internal AI assistant, AskT, the assistants or call center agents, the time they need to make an offer to customers has been reduced from 2 minutes, 21 seconds to 18 seconds. So this means a huge improvement for us in the customer service area, and we're expecting similar gains and impact in other areas. In the U.S., T-Mobile expects AI through the digitization initiative up through 2027 to save EUR 2.7 billion or rather contribute EUR 2.7 billion to adjusted EBIT, and that should reduce the churn rate and allow predictive analysis of networks as well. And they're expecting through digitalization also an effect of 3 to 5 percentage points in the ratio between service and costs. So an increase in productivity of 3% to 5%. So I could talk about all these areas and keep going about -- but the effect will be significant for Deutsche Telekom in all of its business fields. Okay. This leads me to Mr. Schmidt's questions, and I would like to start with a question regarding Mr. Mudesir. Could the Executive Committee have recognized earlier on what the situation of Mr. Mudesir was? Didn't you question his commitment to the Management Board, and you asked about the time lines and you also asked about the competitive situation. In February, I had a feedback discussion with Mr. Mudesir. This is what I usually do, and he didn't say anything on this topic. Quite on the concurrent, then he went to the World Mobile Congress, and he was enthusiastic about all the new products. So for us, as the committee, it was not visible. In the first half of the year, then he addressed us and then the process was very quick, and you can see that he is no longer here today. We regret this very much. We don't really know who could be a successor. We've got -- we don't know whom he wants to go to because there is a competition done. I think he really surprised everybody. I'm also disappointed by this, but we have to handle this. And you also -- well, perhaps you asked why we took Mr. Illek. Yes, we could also have chosen anybody else on the Board of Management. We've got strong competencies. It's always a question of competence and motivation and time. Mr. Illek has worked for the company for a very long time. He's a natural scientist by profession. He has good management skills. So I don't have any doubts that he's perfect for this task. Availability, if you get another task, it's always difficult. I know that the finance level is extremely well positioned with good managers so that if Mr. Illek doesn't have too much time for his managers, there will not be a major problem. So we are well geared for that. And motivation, well, when I informed Mr. Illek about it, he just smiled in his typical way, and he said, well, this is an interesting idea. And I think with Mr. Illek, we've got a good person to fill this position, and we now have time for succession planning. We already started to long list and shortlist external and internal candidates, and we want to find the right candidate and not just fill the position very quickly. Our management team is very good. We've got excellent people in the technological area. So I think we've got enough possibilities to respond. And this also shows that we've got a good management Board. Of course, we were not happy about it because we were disappointed, but we just have to accept it. So much on Mr. Mudesir. I think this covers this topic. Well, you asked about the motivation, succession planning. I already mentioned this. And this leads me to the question of the Audit Committee. Yes, the Audit Committee will have 2 new members. This hasn't happened yet. The constituent meeting will happen after the AGM, and I can only tell you what is intended and the Supervisory Board has to agree to this. Mrs. Knight and Mr. Kruger are planned for the Audit Committee and Mrs. Empey, who has been there for a year, should be the Chairperson. And with Mrs. Empey, I think we'll have an excellent successor in the Chairmanship of this committee should the Supervisory Board adopt this resolution. Then we've got one question concerning the self-commitment. Mr. Schmidt, we didn't discuss it, but it's a good point. And yes, we should think about it. It's a good idea. Had you come to me early on, we might have implemented this already. We didn't discuss it. We didn't deny this. So we will actively take up this topic. And when we come you with further changes, we will take this into account. We'll then also make -- include this. So thank you very much for your hint. Now concerning the absences from the Supervisory Board meetings. You asked what was decided in the individual meetings. Mrs. Empey missed one meeting, an Audit Committee meeting, I assume at least -- assume that this was a collision of dates. If you are new in a body, then it's always difficult. And then I think it was in parallel with another AGM, and we decided about the new auditor. Mr. [ Kreusel ] missed one meeting. We didn't take any resolutions. Mr. Wintels missed the meeting in the plenary session of the Supervisory Board, and it's not said here what resolutions were taken. Mr. Schottke missed several meetings. One, we didn't have any resolution, another meeting where we had a meeting on the budget. Mrs. Seelemann-Wandtke missed one and Mrs. Marx as well, and there were no decisions taken during these meetings. Should there be any resolutions planned, we talk to the missing people beforehand and ask for their written votes. I think this answers this question. And I think these were your -- all your questions. Mr. Schmidt, I think I fully answered your set of questions on Mr. Mudesir. Okay. Then over to Mr. Hottges.

Yes, I come back to Mr. Schmidt's questions regarding value over volume strategy for 2026. If we talk about value over volume, we are focusing on the value per customer in order to increase service revenues instead of just focusing on small volumes, and this is done by price increases and optimization of the rate mix. The rate increase of the mix cards, and we've got an increase of prices by EUR 5 starting with the second mix card. And for broadband, we increased our prices by EUR 1 for new customers in October and EUR 2 for old contracts starting in 2026. You should not forget the only industry which did not succeed in passing on increased costs to the customers is the telecommunications industry in Germany, which is a huge problem, also increased the pressure on our margins in Germany. And this is why these price increases were now necessary, and I think they are tolerable in my view. We do not see any major influence on our customer satisfaction or churn rate or a loss of customers. The goal is that we improve the rate mix and the quality of our revenue so that we have more service revenue that we can use in order to invest into the future value generation of our company and into further expansion of our mobile communications. Then you asked about cybersecurity and you asked who is responsible to steer this to escalate the cyber risks at group level. First of all, the operational responsibility for this topic Cybersecurity is in the security department, and this is under the responsibility of the Board segment, product and technology. We've got a huge security organization there that is also developing the risk situation. And the measurement of cyber risks, our performance in this area is happening across the entire company. We've got a report about the risks. The risk situation is then also feeding into the results, the free cash flow and investments should they be necessary. Third level is the escalation to the Supervisory Board, especially the Audit and Finance Committee, which is informed about the internal control system and the risk and opportunity system in all the meetings. And the Supervisory Board is convinced of the efficiency and effectiveness. Cyber risks are always part of our reporting. Should anything major happen, then we would also go to the Supervisory Board and inform it orally or in writing if there are major incidents. Then you asked about which elements of the Digital Networks Act has the highest influence and what time line we are expecting, the European Commission with the DNA suggested to have only one regulation on all the telecommunications access for all the 27 countries, Networks Act. And we think that this is very bureaucratic, less -- not ambitious enough. It is not reaching the suggestions made by Letta and Draghi, who used to be the Prime Minister of Italy, and it also misses the overall objectives to get more investments into the telecommunications sector in Europe. So these ambitions will not be implemented by this draft bill. And what was meant to simplify the work did not reach the goals. And for us, the reform and harmonization of frequency locations is the best element in this Digital Networks Act. Here, it's about no longer having an auction on spectrums, but giving this spectrum to the telecommunications companies for a longer period of time, I think this is a good idea, then we would receive spectrum, let's say, for 40 years, and we would know that we would not have to spend billions on this, and we could spend these billions for the expansion of the network. So to the benefit of the customer, this is much better. But unfortunately, I don't believe that the member states of the European Union will do without the additional income from their budgets. So we will have to wait and see what will happen and what will be covered by the DNA. We expect that at least 1.5 years will still be needed in order to discuss this. The entry into force is to be expected for the year 2027 at the earliest. But I really have to say that I do not think that the Digital Networks Act will have very positive effects for our business. Then the Digital Networks effect again -- Act again, you asked about the national and cross-border consolidation and what partnerships and other models can enjoy. First of all, the Digital Networks Act does not change anything about consolidation. This is antitrust issues that we have to take into account here. And irrespective of the DNA, we see larger scaling effects as necessary. China has 3 large telecommunications companies for a market of EUR 1.5 billion. America has Verizon, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom for a market of EUR 330 million and Europe with 450 million inhabitants has 3 to 4 competitors in each country multiplied by 27. This means that we've got more than 100 vendors, suppliers in the European telecommunications market, and I don't have to talk about the consequences. The revenues are half of what you have in other markets and half of the suppliers cannot earn their capital costs. You've got an enormous price competition because everybody is just trying to get some money for investments. So what we really need is European consolidation. We urgently need a big European player that is on par with the U.S. and Chinese telecommunication companies. We need economies of scale. Otherwise, we would have a fragmented market, which will make us a victim of large global companies. Fiber in multifamily homes and how can we improve this? The legal framework conditions to improve the access to multifamily buildings is necessary, which is also driven by Mr. Wildberger, and we are asking for better access to multi-dwelling units because otherwise, FTTH cannot be successful. If you go to a house and the landlord doesn't give us access to the staircase, we cannot connect the individual apartments. And if you connect one apartment, we have to be allowed to also connect the other apartments even if they have not booked this yet. This is free of charge to the customers, but we do not have to do the building several times. And this is why we ask for clear legal regulation for multi-dwelling units to make sure that we can do the rollout effectively. Then the access to buildings and floods, I already mentioned this. We need practical and legal certainty here. And at present, there is an initiative and paper, which is discussed in the parliament in Germany, and we clearly support this initiative. This leads me to the question of cable systems and the legal situation. What is the current situation here, it's about the fees to be paid for using our cable systems. Vodafone Deutschland GmbH and Vodafone West GmbH have suit Telekom Deutschland. And basically, the question is whether Telekom Deutschland will stick to what was decided in 2003 in the connection of the sale of the cable subsidiaries and whether this is now become obsolete because we bought these companies and this was connected to long-term obligations at which conditions the cable ducts of Deutsche Telekom could be used, and this is now controversial. In the most recent decisions, the Federal Court of Justice in December 2021 said that the decisions of the higher regional courts were to be repelled and a new lawsuit was necessary. Nothing has been decided yet. The lease was paid, and we still think that it is appropriate. The financial impact of these lawsuits cannot be estimated at the current point in time. So please bear with me if I am unable to give you concrete figures here. Mr. Schmidt, you also asked about the shareholders' action of the Delaware Court of Chancery. And at present, 2 shareholders' actions are against us, one of June 2021 regarding the Sprint joint venture and one dating back to February 2025 regarding the share buyback program for T-Mobile U.S. and there are no clear indications how much money is asked for, and we cannot give you any information right now what the burdens will be. And in the lawsuit of June 2021, a lot of documents were submitted and a lot of people were interviewed and various experts' opinions were submitted, but a date for an oral hearing has not been defined yet for the lawsuit dating back to February 2025, Deutsche Telekom has asked to dismiss the lawsuit because it's not logical. No decision has been taken yet, and there is -- it is not possible to make a forecast now how long these lawsuits will take. Then Mr. Schmidt, you also asked about the effect of the Gigabit Infrastructure Act on our fiber rollout in Germany, and you asked about the internal target values. We expect standardized approval procedures and the use of alternative technological processes in order to support our fiber rollout. Regarding the access to buildings, we think it's necessary to have a clear legal regulation for good fiber rollout. It's no use if we are allowed to build in the streets, but if you can't get access to the buildings. And we have clear targets, for example, regarding the coverage of households and also 2.5 new homes passed lines, but we do not have any specific -- geo-specific KPIs. You also want to know whether we still see problems in implementation on site for legal and regional decisions. The -- yes, all these decisions can have an impact on investments, but it still depends on the implementation in Germany. And in Germany, the public interest in the network expansion at state and regional level are now implemented. We do have the legal framework conditions, but now they also need to be implemented by the municipalities in order to be fully effective. And as a background information, why do we still have these problems in Germany because we have to build underground. We are only -- we have only very few masts and towers. In other countries, it's different. And therefore, it's much more difficult for us to connect rural areas in Germany, and this is why we have to use civil engineering. You asked about satellite cooperation, Mr. Schmidt. And the question was whether through T-satellite, we see options to achieve better coverage, mobile coverage. Mr. [ Ponson ], I think that was your question. Let me just remind you that Mr. Beckendorff will be the next speaker on the list. Then [ Alexandra Mu ], Ms. Mu from SDK and then [ Jacques Abramovich ] from the [indiscernible] Foundation. Thank you very much. [ Mr. Ponson ] asked a question about T-satellite and Starlink. I talked about this before, where we don't have coverage yet. Of course, we want to offer satellite as an additional option. We promise to always make sure that our customers have the best network. And so satellite is a good option. It has to be integrated into the mobile network, of course. And it will be integrated, and we are also boosting resilience if something should go wrong, then, of course, the satellite link will work. Of course, we will not only be able to transmit voice, but also messaging services, for example, through the Starlink connection. I think that for business customers as well as retail customers, this is an interesting use case. We can already see today that there are maritime use cases and also government use cases, satellites are getting more and more important. We call this the network of networks. And of course, we will always do everything in order to be able to offer the latest technology to our customers. It doesn't always have to be terrestrial technology. [ Mr. Ponson ] also asked about the range of our fiber network in the U.S., our position towards AT&T and Horizon. T-Mobile U.S. has a clear advantage over the others. We are #1 in terms of 5G in the U.S. It has a lot to do with the spectrum position that we acquired when we joined together with Sprint. And today, there is no relevant fixed network that we have in the U.S. That's why when it comes to the fiber race, we started from a weaker position compared to AT&T and Horizon. And so we deliberately focused on an acquisition strategy with the acquisition of some companies. And I already pointed out that we want to do more on this score. But we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater in terms of acquisitions. We want to be smart about it. That's why we believe in joint ventures. These are partnerships with private equity companies. We share the infrastructure cost with these private equity companies. And when it comes to marketing these products, we will do that ourselves. So we don't have as much capital tied down, and we share the capital cost, and they are not consolidated in our balance sheet. At the same time, we have the biggest fixed wireless access. We offer the best fixed wireless access. Now what is this all about? We serve homes via the 5G network. We have a very strong 5G spectrum position, which gives us this capacity via the mobile service to connect homes. And this is working very well in the U.S. because especially in rural areas, fixed line service compared to Germany is very poor, compared to Germany, for example. So the mobile service is a really viable alternative. And we currently have somewhere around 8 million customers that are already using this service. Now we will keep you up to date, but we're not panicking because we don't think that convergence is a must in the U.S. market. Do you think that the media content strategy is sufficient in order to reduce fluctuations? Now this question relates to Germany. And my answer is when it comes to MagentaTV, we are an aggregator. What is an aggregator? An aggregator joins all services -- merges all services. We have analog, we have the streaming platforms. We also have exclusive rights that we sometimes acquire like the broadcasting rights to the Football World Cup. You can see all the commercials on TV, 44 games -- for 44 games, we have exclusive rights. And of course, the matches with Germany will also be shown on Free TV due to legal reasons. Now we have functions like voice control, for example. We have metadata that can be used. So we can offer a lot of features that other platforms don't have. And the end result is that we have very good customer retention. Also, grassroots sports is in our -- part of our offering, Basketball, Champions League. So we do have exclusive content on MagentaTV that only we can offer. And most of our customers are really happy about this aggregating function. And every now and then, we will acquire exclusive rights to pictures and to events like the Football World Cup. And you can also use Magenta TV as a streaming platform. It's much more cost efficient because you have to spend less than if you purchase an account for these individual streaming vendors. The next question, security incidents and the security of your supply line. Now NIS-2, which you mentioned, now the tightened European requirements on the protection of European infrastructures, we welcome that. And we are implementing this right now with additional actions on the resilience of our computer centers and a certified emergency procedure. Maybe as an anecdote, yesterday, Lieutenant General Bodemann joined our management meeting and informed us about the security situation and about ways in which we can cooperate with the federal armed forces. And we also decided yesterday that the physical infrastructure of our buildings and critical network components should be additionally reinforced with camera technology and also adequate staffing. We have an incident management and attack identification technology, so-called [ NOC ], which is a service 24/7, which sets off alerts and cyber response teams that are available around the clock can respond to any emergency. And we have regular training of all staff in order to identify incidents early on and respond to them. That's a huge topic behind the Magenta curtain. So this is going on behind the scenes all the time, and it's definitely one of our priorities because we know that we are a target for cyber attacks. And we also want to make a contribution to a safe and secure infrastructure in Germany in a crisis situation. And our program is much bigger than I could tell you right now. In terms of the security of supply lines, we have proactive monitoring. We keep the Supervisory Board informed at all times. We have a multi-supplier strategy in the company, and we always have alternative suppliers. We constantly monitor supply lines. We have a separate unit for this, and we try to minimize risk through various actions. The GPUs that I mentioned before, that's a case in point. And the memory chips that you find everywhere are now really scarce because of the importance -- rising importance of GPUs. So we need to address this as well. [ Mr. Ponson ], you also asked about the enhancement of our cyber strategy, critical facilities. Well, we protect them through technical physical actions, then we monitor our networks around the clock. And depending on the time of day, we have 30,000 to 50,000 attempted attacks on our networks per minute, per minute. Well, how is that possible? Well, all of these are programs, and they are constantly operating in the networks and keep trying to attack the network. And I can tell you a software is tireless. It's always on the go, and it will not disappear. And this is going to get even worse. So we need to make sure that we have firewalls and resilience actions. And we also have geo redundancies as part of our resilience approach. I don't want to go into too much detail, but we have several layers of redundancies. If certain components fail automatically, other components will step in. And we do not only have a twofold redundancy, but in certain functions, an X time redundancy. So if we are attacked, if somebody attacks our network, then other parts of the network will step in. [ Mr. Ponson ], you also asked about the influence of government requirements on our targets and the importance of these initiatives as for the attractiveness, our attractiveness as an employer. In all markets, and I remember 12 months ago, we had the same discussion at the AGM. We always work under applicable law. And in the United States, we also respond to legal requirements when it comes to DEI questions. But I can also tell you that in all our markets, wherever we are, we stand by our principles, our values, principle of equal opportunities, diversity and we also uphold our other corporate values. And I can assure you that there is not a single market in which we operate where we have to hide our values or ignore them, but we don't moralize either. We don't engage in a moral political debate in the countries where we are. This is not our job. So let me move on to the DEI activities. That's a really important issue in terms of employer branding and employer attractiveness. I don't need to tell you that we are the leading employer 2024, '25. We are among the top level -- the top 1% of employers. We are diversity leaders. Across the generations, we encourage equal opportunities, lifelong learning, we employ younger people, older people, men, women, no matter their background. And this is a culture that we implement, that we live, and it is also recognized by the outside world. So I think we are more than just an average company as far as this is concerned, but we are a role model, and this is also our aspiration. How do you approach -- how do you address energy demand in your computer center? Is this a risk for climate protection targets? Of course, [ Mr. Ponson ], these computer centers require enormous amounts of energy. So no doubt about it. And now if Germany wants to be a place where you can build such computer centers and operate them, then this country has to be in a position to offer low-cost energy. And Germany is not that place yet. So we urgently need to work on that. And so that's my appeal. We definitely need subsidies in order to build future-oriented computer centers and introduce technologies for the future. We are absolutely aware of the fact that -- whenever we build computer centers, data centers and operate them, then, of course, we need more power. And we have to see where that power comes from in line with our climate targets, where we can source green power from maybe wind farms or from other sources in Munich, for example, we've been able to conclude contracts with suppliers of renewable energies. Since 2021, we've been able to meet our energy demand wherever we are from these sources and the energy consumption by 2027, we want to keep it at least stable. So we are building data centers. We are building the network, expanding the network. All of this requires more energy. But at the same time, our ambition is to save on energy consumption and to use energy more intelligently. So we want to -- at the same time, while we expand, we still want to save energy. So actually, we are using more power, but we want to save more. And that's why we have to also convert our network or -- so for example, an antenna doesn't have to transmit at certain times. Nowadays, antenna are always operational. But if somebody goes into a cell and then leaves the cell, of course, the cells have to be switched on and off. But if there is nobody in a certain cell, you can switch it off, but the experience for the customer is the same. But for us, this reduces energy consumption enormously. So this is a very ambitious target that despite our expansion, we want to keep our energy consumption constant. But it is one of our targets anyway. And this is what we are going to work on in the next few years. You also asked about the cooling concept, water cooling and waste heat. Of course, whenever data centers, and they all generate enormous heat, then this is recycled. And by recycling this heat, you recover energy for heating other facilities, for example. And this is done or measured through the power usage effectiveness, PUE factor. Currently, our PUE is at 1.3. In the Munich center, it's 1.2, so you can already see how energy efficient this center is. And since these GPUs, these racks will be cooled by water, the energy efficiency of these data centers is going to go up even. So the waste that is generated can be recycled to a larger extent than today. And economically speaking, this is very important for us. We want to achieve this because we don't want to waste any energy and we don't want to waste any heat because we can use it profitably. The group-wide water consumption is going down 9.4% since last year. Our clear objective here is to keep reducing energy and water consumption, but 9.4% was the reduction last year. Now another question about the women's quota, if you will, the women's ratio in the workforce, 24%. And you asked how we can boost that share of women in the workforce. I said before that diversity makes us stronger. It's one of my convictions, opens up new perspectives. It helps us to take better decisions, and that applies both to gender diversity, age diversity and also international diversity. But the primary interest for us should be to make the company even more successful. I mean the priority is not to ask, are you a man or a woman, are young or old? I mean, the most important question is who is the best one for the job and who can make the best contribution to the company? Now this is our point of orientation. But of course, we need to make a bigger effort to recruit and select the right people and to put a bigger focus on the role of women in leadership positions. We're already doing a lot. And we -- this is very important for us to strike a balance here, a gender balance and an international balance. This is an important part of our recruiting and hiring policies. I mean, of course, this is a company that is in love with technology. And so our share of women is still relatively small, but it's definitely one of our priorities to boost that share. These are my answers to the questions raised by [ Mr. Ponson ].

Yes, there have been a lot of questions. So can I ask that questions that have been raised before will not be raised again by other speakers as well because we've already provided ample information. We are now continuing with Mr. Beckendorff. And this is the representative of the DSW, and I'm very pleased about that because the DSW awarded a prize to Mr. Hottges for good corporate governance. And I'm very pleased about this. Actually, you gave the same award to me 3 years ago, and that prize to Mr. Hottges some time ago, and this prize was also awarded to my predecessor here, Mr. Lehner. Mr. Brandt was my predecessor at another company that I was working for. And Mr. [indiscernible], a previous colleague of mine from DHL, also received this prize. So yes, I can see that you're patting each other on the shoulder. That's certainly a good reason when you look at the list of the laureates, and you will find it's a long list of distinguished managers, including now Mr. Hottges. So don't worry about your 10 minutes. You still have your 10 minutes of speaking time.

Thank you. I'll need them. And I just wanted to say that it becomes increasingly hard to find adequate candidates for the DSW award. My name is Beckendorff, and I am representing the DSW and North Rhine-Westphalia, and I am representing private investors at today's AGM who have delegated their right to vote to us. First of all, I'm pleased to say that this year's AGM is a face-to-face meeting once again, a physical meeting. After all, an AGM can only be successful if there is a personal exchange between management and shareholders. The fact that we have a physical event here is a token of a good shareholder culture, and we would like to praise that. And we would like to show our respect for the excellent results achieved. 2025 was a very successful and sound year. The forecast for adjusted EBITDA-AL and for free cash flow was raised several times throughout the year, which has become some sort of standard. Having said that, the results reported were also negatively impacted by currency effects. And at the same time, the very strong performance of T-Mobile U.S. played a major role for the success of the company overall. And the aforementioned achievements referred to the organic growth. We would like to thank management and all staff of Deutsche Telekom, and we would like to ask management to pass on our thanks to your workforce. Ladies and gentlemen, on a less positive note, let's now take a look at ROCE, profitability. ROCE was down from 8.5% to 7.5% in the previous year. For the current year, you are expecting a further minor decline before you are then expecting another marked increase. Even though the negative trend is mostly down to negative one-offs, the question is how you intend to achieve a ROCE of 9% by 2027, which is what you announced at Capital Markets Day. So how reliable are the underlying assumptions for that? Let's take a look at the U.S. T-Mobile U.S. continues to be the group's growth engine. Nonetheless, negative currency effects last year showed that we are very much dependent on the U.S. business, which accounts for around 2/3 of adjusted EBITDA-AL. And this means that we are facing a major risk. In addition, the competitive environment in the U.S. mobile market is becoming increasingly fierce, which is reflected in higher price sensitivity amongst customers and higher churn rates. So how can you prevent that T-Mobile U.S. is losing ground. Margins are down and prices are under pressure. But increasing pressure, increasing competitive pressure does not only affect mobile operators. Satellites also play a major role that complements the current scenario. T-Mobile U.S. cooperates with Starlink as part of satellite. You said that starting in 2028, you also want to work with Starlink and you want to use satellite for mobile services starting in 2028, even though in the past, Mr. Hottges always seem to be quite skeptical about that. How does the Board of Management look at a possible threat through satellite operators for the mobile and broadband businesses in the U.S. and Europe? In Europe, we hold a share in the IRS 2 consortium. So in Europe, we are trying to be more sovereign. But how does that fit the cooperation with Starlink from 2028? Or is the partnership with Starlink actually a sign of the fact that you don't expect relevant European solutions to come into play in time. About the German market. The German market remained below expectations. Despite the fiber rollout with 2.5 new lines and more than 1 million FTTH customers, you actually lost 49,000 broadband customers in the previous year. In 2026, you realigned your fiber strategy. What's new about that? And when do you expect this realigned strategy to help you achieve your goals? Right now, the German fiber industry is under -- is in the midst of a crisis. We've seen shock waves in the industry and smaller providers are only able to survive in the market to a limited extent. So what role can Deutsche Telekom play here in the fiber market? What are your strategic options? Ladies and gentlemen, we look at the amendment of the German Telecommunications Act in a critical way. The Federal Network Agency in the future will be given the right to switch off a copper network in a region that from the point of view of the Federal Network Agency offers a relevant coverage of the fiber network. And this means that part of the infrastructure would no longer be used, and that would mark a major interference of ownership rights. It would actually mean that the state would more or less expropriate a company, and we believe this would not be acceptable. Here are a couple of questions. What are the financial and organizational consequences that the Board of Management expects from the amendment to the Telecommunications Act? And what does Deutsche Telekom intend to do to make sure that investments are secure and that ownership will continue to be protected? In other group areas, there are also several questions regarding the strategic orientation. For instance, in the systems business. The industrial AI cloud was successfully taken into operation together with NVIDIA in Munich and positioned as an important center of innovation, as Mr. Hottges explained this morning. What has been your first experience? And what is the current level of utilization? Do you think that this will generate considerable earnings? Or do you think it is more of a symbolic project that will not have major economic significance? The EU is providing funds to expand the AI environment. And the Schwarz Group is also planning to set up an AI Gigafactory. It was estimated that EUR 8 billion to EUR 10 billion need to be invested in the setting up of such a gigafactory according to Mr. Hottges. So how -- what's the current status of your plans to set up such a gigafactory with the Schwarz Group? What are the prerequisites to be met for that? About sustainability. In the past fiscal year, within your own company, you achieved climate neutrality. At the same time, you missed out on another target. By 2025, you said that 50% of your electricity would come from green energy. However, you only achieved 26%. So why did you fail to reach your target regarding electricity so clearly? And you said that by 2030, you want to be at a net zero emissions. In the previous year, you talked about 500 tonnes of CO2 equivalents, but now you're only talking about 959 kilotons. So how do you intend to close this gap? And how did this come about in the first place compared to the prior year? Before I talk about today's agenda, I would like to make 2 more comments on the Board of Management. Regarding the succession planning for the CEO, we can see a new situation. We don't know where the situation is headed now that Claudia Nemat and Srini Gopalan have left. And now there is a new situation again because Abdur Mudesir, responsible for product and technology, decided to leave the company as well. This is a very central post on the Board of Management. And this Board of -- this member of the Board left the company just 6 months after he's been appointed. And we believe that this is really worth talking about. And Mr. Hottges, you also mentioned it, you also said that there is a competition ban. Was Mr. Mudesir entitled to receive any severance pay even though he voluntarily left the company? Now let me come to the agenda. The dividend proposed EUR 1 per share marks an 11% increase year-on-year, which is yet another record dividend. Related to the unadjusted earnings per share, we have a payout ratio that is even slightly above the proposed threshold of DSW, which is 50% of the group's profit. In other words, Deutsche Telekom's shareholders still have their share of the company's success, and we welcome that. Under Item 4, this is about granting discharge to the members of the Supervisory Board. I have another question here. Mr. Lars Hinrichs left the Supervisory Board last year. In 2025, he only attended 1 of 3 meetings of the Innovation and Strategy Committee of Telekom. What are the reasons for that? Under Item 7, we have the proposed new members of the Supervisory Board, which we support. It would have been very nice, however, if Dr. Herzig had been able to attend today's meeting here in order to introduce himself personally to the shareholders. We would like to obtain more information on the underlying nomination procedure for the members of the Supervisory Board. How many candidates did the Supervisory Board talk to as part of this procedure? The qualification matrix, which was published showing the skills of the members is still insufficient from our point of view. In the previous years, we always criticized this procedure and the criteria. However, unfortunately, you failed to react to it and failed to revise the relevant criteria. Why is that? We would like to expressly thank Mrs. Kollmann and Mr. Streibich, the 2 departing members of the Supervisory Board. We would like to thank them very much for their many years of activity on the Supervisory Board. Back to the current year, revenue and earnings will continue to rise. Adjusted EBITDA-AL will rise by 6%, free cash flow 3% and EPS by 10% to EUR 1.20. That's the plan, and this forecast looks very promising. Next year, we believe it would be realistic to pay out a dividend of EUR 1.10. And these continue to be good prospects for the Telekom shareholders. To wind up my talk, I would like to thank the management and all the staff of Deutsche Telekom for the work done. And for 2026, we wish you the best of success. Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you. Before we continue with Alexandra Mu, I would like to answer the 3 questions you raised. First of all, Mr. Mudesir was not paid any severance. The reason why Mr. Hinrichs only attended 1 of 3 meetings was that he was afraid that there might be a conflict of interest, which is why he then resigned from his mandate and did not attend the meetings anymore, which we welcome. And as for the nomination procedure, we talked to 3 candidates of whom 2 were proposed at today's AGM as new members. And as for, yes, the competence, on my corporate governance roadshow, I've also had intense talks about that. Yes, we'll look into it and how we can improve it, but it will always remain a complex venture. But I've taken this on board once again. Mr. Schmidt had also pointed it out. So I think these are the questions that you asked to me. And now we are continuing with Alexandra Mu. So please be sure to stick with the 10 minutes because we still have a long list of questions and we'll have to restrict speaking time further anyway.

Members of the Supervisory Board, members of the Board of Management, dear shareholders. My name is Alexandra Mu. I am representing SDK shareholders who delegated their rights to vote to us. I would like to make 2 positive comments to start off my talk. We very much welcome the fact that this AGM has been organized yet again as a physical meeting and that the dividend payout ratio amounts to 50%. SDK believes that this is a very good thing. About the items on the agenda, unfortunately, we won't be able to approve Item 8 on the agenda because the various capital-related measures and the approved capital exceeds the 25% threshold defined by our organization. Item 10 is an item that we will abstain on because we cannot see to what extent the relevant clause on the place of jurisdiction can actually take effect and what it will mean for the company. Then as for the election of Supervisory Board members, there's Mr. Wintels, and he holds various mandates, which we think is a critical thing, but we will approve his election anyway because of his excellent expertise, and this will certainly improve the competence of the Supervisory Board overall. And we also believe that Mr. Wintels will set aside enough time for his activities at Deutsche Telekom.

Ladies and gentlemen, the business year 2025 of Deutsche Telekom went as planned, the Management Board attained the targets set for the year. Group sales and adjusted EBIT of the company both rose as did the special effects on the adjusted EBIT. The other metrics, return on capital, financial liabilities, equity ratio and provisions have not changed significantly year-on-year. The complex international business as well as the opportunities and risks associated with it have been discussed in a very transparent way in the annual report, not only with regard to the group, but also the reporting on the different segments. And so word of praise for the reporting as well. And regarding comments on the financial metrics, I want to limit myself just to a few points. What I noticed in the annual report was that you wrote regarding the radio tower business. Here, you have differing approaches depending on the market. And there are different markets, the U.S. and in Europe. In 2025, for example, in Europe, you spun off 3 towers in a separate company. Do you operate only purely opportunistically here? I find that hard to believe because the agreements on towers are usually long term. Or are there strategic considerations on how you want to deal with this tower business going forward. I also had a question about the USA and cyber attacks that took place in '21 and '22 and the court proceedings relating to these because Mr. -- I won't go into detail because Mr. Schmidt already asked a question about that, and I think it was adequately answered. Next question that I have also relates to the business report for 2025. Under provisions, you talk about the personnel transformation program, which relates to a certain U.S. subsidiary. And could you tell us what this involves personnel adjustment measures in the U.S. And I also have questions about your forecast regarding future business trend. In business year '25, you attained pretty much all your goals, your targets in 2027 and the targets you've set for these in terms of -- you're behind these forecast values for 2027, and that -- it's very ambitious for '27 and '26 as well, the geopolitical situation is making it difficult and it might make it difficult to attain the targets for the year '27 as well. That leads me to the following question. the '24 targets you communicated at the Capital Markets Day, are you going to adjust these? Or do you think these are still attainable this year and the next year. Political conditions have changed, also economic conditions, they changed significantly. And I'm thinking of the events in the Middle East and they could cause the economic situation to deteriorate this year. How do you see these macroeconomic risks? And in terms of my question is, do you want to stick to this assessment that you made previously? Or do you think telecom and the U.S. subsidiary will be able to weather these unfavorable conditions right now. And in this context, I have several additional questions. Which of your segments as a result of the current situation might be particularly negatively affected. For example, problems in procurement, this was touched on earlier or development freezes on projects. And if this -- what measures do you have in your back pocket? And also the topic of tariffs in Germany and the U.S., we face a situation where this is one of Donald Trump's pet peeves. As a result of your market position in the U.S., can you pass on the costs? You've been successful in doing this in Germany thus far, you said. And what growth potential do you see in Germany and in Eastern and Southeast European countries, what's the competitive situation there from your perspective? And in closing, I have a question about our stock shares. The cost of telecom share since the beginning of '26 has recovered. In 2025, though, the rate -- the share rate declined continuously. And you appear -- you comment on this in the business report. You say this development was impacted by the weak U.S. dollar and the weak share price development with T-Mobile's share in the U.S. Can you explain us why the T-Mobile share price dropped over the year and what the current expectations are regarding the share of T-Mobile in the U.S. going forward.

Thank you. This brings us to Mr. Jack Abramovitch, who will be speaking for the AG-Stiftung Stark Foundation. And after that, Mr. Christian Illek will answer the questions and then Mr. Christian Strenger and 2 and then 3 additional persons will be asked up to the podium to ask their questions. But Mr. Abramovitch, you lead the way.

Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, Mr. Hottges, members of the Management Board and Supervisory Board. It's an honor for me to be able to speak before you this date, the 1st of April 2026 as a special day. We're looking back on the business year 2025, where German Deutsche Telekom not only showed that it can meet its targets, it exceeded them. I'd also like to express a word of thanks to you, Mr. Hottges, to the entire management team and the almost 200,000 employees worldwide. The adjusted EBITDA of EUR 44 billion and a free cash flow of almost EUR 20 billion are not -- don't just fall out of the sky. They are the result of resolute execution and a clear strategic vision. In particular, I should stress the record dividend of EUR 1 per share. That's a historic payout for this company in a volatile market situation. Mr. Hottges, looking back over your entire term of office, one notices your success. When you became CEO in 2014, the share price was -- and the share price has increased dramatically over this time and the share -- the dividend has doubled from EUR 0.50 to EUR 1. You've turned telecom from a limping company to a European champion. In the U.S., you call the shots. And that means you are due our most profound respect. Looking at the Business report 25 shows the reasons for this performance. the U.S. majority with almost 53% of T-Mobile U.S. means that you have cemented control over it. T-Mobile is the engine of the whole Magenta ecosystem now. Glass fiber optic turbo in Germany, the mark of 24 million homes passed was achieved. Last year, 2 million contracts were added to this. And this is the telecom provides the backbone of the German economy. More than 500 AI projects are ongoing, which shows that telecom is leading this technological revolution instead of just playing catch-up ball. But we have to talk about the -- what this -- the impact of all this growth is on other things, namely our net debt. Yes, it declined slightly last year. Nevertheless, we have a debt of EUR 132.5 billion. That's an amount that should cause -- give rise to concern as a result of high interest rates. The ratio is 2.62% in interest expenses, but this might need to be restricted or lowered a lot. We're buying back EUR 2 billion in shares, and we're pleased about this. But we wonder whether this money could not be better used to reduce the debt level. And based on analyst and statements made -- the analysts and the statements made since the last Capital Day, I have 2 questions. With regard to the migration to fiber optic, have you thought that the parallel infrastructures of copper and fiber optic caused huge costs. In the past, you were talking about the switching off of copper by 2030. My question has been partially answered already. How many switching stations were switched over to fiber optic last year. And looking at the savings in costs, will these become -- will have the 100% impact by the end of 2027. And artificial intelligence, you said will be driving the margin in the future. At the same time, what percent of margin improvement in Germany in 2025 can be attributed to AI and automated processes? And how can you ensure that we won't lose service quality, which right now is our most important feature setting us off from the competition. Another point is debt management. In view of the fact that a significant part of our liabilities have to be refinanced in the next 24 months. How do you assess the risk that increasing interest could cause headwinds in the future and the needed and could it jeopardize investment in 6G and other future technologies? Why is management prioritizing share buyback instead of spending the money on reducing the debt structure to optimize capital costs? Deutsche Telekom is stronger than ever before today. T is shining all over the world. And we respect your performance, Mr. Hottges, but call for you to have very -- showed tremendous discipline so that telecom can become even stronger and get traction going forward.

Thank you. [ Mr. Abramovitch. Mr. Frank and Mr. Stanger, Mr. Thomas Lohninger, Mr. Markus Dufner, and Erna Demirdefran ] are the next -- will be the next persons at the podium. I'll start off with the question of Mr. Beckham regarding T-Mobile U.S. and stronger competition in the U.S. Our forecast for business year '26 and the following remain the same. In February, at the Capital Market Day, this was confirmed by T-Mobile U.S. and we're very successful. And the competition has -- they come and go with their announcements of price changes. But the bottom line is we have the best network, and it's getting better and better in the U.S., too. That differentiates us. We have the best service. We're a carrier. And against this background, it's -- there's no question that we're going to stay on our successful trajectory. We're not going for volume at any price either. And if the competition takes off its gloves and gets more aggressive, then we'll have to respond on the cost side. But we have -- we are already better on the cost side than on the competition in the U.S., and we're banking on digitalization and AI. So we're doing our homework. We're staying fit for the future. And if the competition believes that they need to get more aggressive with their pricing, we will be prepared for that. To what extent can Deutsche Telekom be actively involved in the consolidation of the fiber optic market in Germany? Where do you see the opportunities? And what are the options? Well, we are referred to as the dominant company in the market. And I won't comment on that, but it's the case. And in this context, we believe that if we can help somebody that we will. And if a company is up for sale, then we'll take them into our portfolio. That won't be easy from an antitrust perspective, but we'll have to look at opportunities when they arise. But if larger stakes are involved, I think the German Cartel Authority and the antitrust authorities will be looking very closely at that. Also, the partnerships, one with Ivanti and then GlasfaserPlus, these are options -- we're working with local competitors to build infrastructure jointly, and that's also a model and for consolidation. And this, we want to offer communities partnerships if they want to build out fiber optic. And so all these things help when you have a lot of small competitors just fighting to survive and that allows them to have access to our customers in the market, too. Question about the industrial AI cloud with the AI factory. What's the experience with this? And what's the current capacity utilization? I'd like to express my respect for [ Fabian Hassan ] at T-Systems because his team within 6 months from the idea to this -- to the realization of this plan, that's how long it took 6 months, and that's a record time, and that deserves my utmost in respect. We've gained a lot of new customers over the last few months. We've been up and running for 3 months with Quantum system bots, Siemens, PhysicsX, these are all companies that are joining in. The utilization is said to be 40% right now. That's what we've achieved in a short amount of time, and we'll have to observe this over time and how intensely it developments, but the start-up was at least very promising. Next question relates to the revision of the Telecommunications Act. You asked about property -- asset protection and reliability and whether it was an intensive positive dialogue with the policymaking sphere. I can put it this way. The switching off of copper, I commented on that in my presentation. We don't think that's acceptable. And if that happens, that will be tantamount to appropriation. And we will do everything we can to prevent that from happening. The revision of the Telecommunications Act, the Federal Network Agency is to have the right to initiate switching off of the copper network in the future. And I pointed out in the legislative procedure here that the Digital Ministry should improve FTTB and FTTH and build-out to apartment buildings and multifamily homes. That's where the priority should be set because we need the right conditions. First of all, the right underlying conditions before we can roll out fiber optic in multifamily residences. So we welcome this initiative, and this will lead to legal certainty that will probably provide more clarity going forward in the next few months. You also asked about the reasons for the failure to have 50% green energy used in the contracts for electricity use. We didn't meet that target. That's true. We're at 26% right now. And this metric applies to the group, not including the -- and doesn't include the U.S. And outside Germany, our electricity needs are covered 100% by renewables. But with PPAs, we have limited capacities. We have to directly receive electricity directly from producers, and we've had to reduce this amount. So also the certificates of origin, we have to make use of these right now. And of course, we're interested and concluding these PPAs in the first half of the year. So this number will increase, but it was the market that led to us only being able to attain 26%. You asked about the details regarding the climate transition plan. It's intended to -- for internal steering and planning of our emission reduction measures. And we have an interest group to achieve this target, and they inform the public on this. And the Management Board and Supervisory Board have confirmed this. Last year, we saw a major potential in the supply chain, but that didn't turn out to be the case. And so the measures we've already begun and additional activities will come online to attain the goals we've set there. Our annual plan is we want to reduce our targets there, and we want to -- we'll be relying on our suppliers and the supply chain to reduce CO2 emissions. At the same time, reduction of greenhouse gases can be achieved in other ways as well, for example, through the use of our devices. Also satellite providers, including what does the competition from them look like in the U.S. and Europe, also in broadband and mobile, we've discussed this already. At present, we don't see any danger of cannibalization. In other words, we don't see any danger that the satellite producers and there's only satellite companies. There's only one really Starlink. AST don't -- and others don't have such a broad offer in the market as Starlink does. It's the leading technology with most satellites in orbit. And in rural areas, they have a very interesting offering for supply, and that's been in place for some time. And we're positioning our broadband offering and mobile because the broadband -- the bandwidth is much higher than satellite can offer. But the spectrum used by Starlink is much less -- significantly less than what we can use here terrestrially. And that's why because a lot of demand can't be can't be executed by satellite. It's just too much the volume. And so we see this as an addition, an add-on to our mobile offering, and that's why we concluded this deal with Starlink so that customers have a redundant alternative supply regardless of where they are in the mobile area. So we see less risk of cannibalization, and we see it more of a supplemental. Also, you asked about [ Ivory Square from Space Rise ] and the plan Starlink co-collaboration in Europe. You asked how this fits together beginning in '28. [ Ivory Square ] and Starlink don't contradict each other. They both strengthen connectivity and European sovereignty independence. Also, they -- in the SpaceRISE consortium, we're -- yes, we're part of that and for things like 5G and also T-Systems with IT and computer center services to supply companies in Europe with this service. And the Starlink partnership, as I said, is concentrating de facto on direct-to-device. So basically, if they don't have mobile service, you can have -- you can communicate via satellite on your cell phone. These are both excellent supplements. Our strategy is with all these technologies to really provide the customer the best service in a simple way. And we're not talking only about exclusive satellite service and just working with one partner. We don't want to become dependent on one partner. You also asked the question concerning the reorientation of fiber strategy in Germany. I already mentioned this and how we can go above the rate of 20% in the uptake rate. This is very important. We cannot only keep on building infrastructure, which is not used, but we have to utilize our infrastructure because it's enormous investments we are making EUR 2 billion to EUR 3 billion per year going into fiber technology. We have to improve utilization. We are good in the rollout to the homes, homes passed. And here, we are also having better productivity. We are cheaper, and we now have to go for utilization. And we do this with additional sales initiatives. For example, the telecom shops that you are all familiar with were given new staff, and this staff also goes to the home so that you know who the people are and the people can give you advice at home how fiber infrastructure could be built, what it will look like, what is required for this. So this is an additional service that we offer. The same is true for multi-dwelling units. If we are in a building, then we can easily go to the families and ask them whether they want to switch to fiber. And we also saw that especially single-family homes have a higher take-up rate. And this is why we want to focus on single-family homes, especially in rural areas. And here, we want to win more customers. The owners of single-family homes simply see that the value of their real estate and also the reselling value is higher if they can already offer a fiber connection. The next question by Mr. Beckendorf is regarding industrial AI cloud. Of course, we are not doing this for altruistic reasons, but also in view of the major gigafactory we are discussing for Germany, Deutsche Telekom does not need a gigafactory. Germany needs a gigafactory. Germany needs the sovereign data center architecture. And this is why Germany and the public authorities have to provide the necessary money. They have to book capacities and they also have to offer a reasonable energy and electricity price. Then a company such as Deutsche Telekom can really go on investing. And we are in discussion with the European Union and the German government and we plan to scale up the business model. We laid the foundations already with our industrial cloud in Munich, and we can ramp up these capacities. And this will not only give us higher revenues, but it will also give us a better customer retention in other areas, for example, connectivity, which will open up new business models. You also asked about prerequisites for the big gigafactory. I already mentioned this. And by the way, such a gigafactory, the European Union wants to have 5 or 6 of them in Europe, it costs between EUR 8 million and EUR 10 million, one of them. And an investment in this size is only possible if you've got a good business plan that covers these enormous investments. So we need utilization. The state has to be the anchor customer. And if it does and if it ensures utilization, we can go forward. And then we need good land, we need good electricity connections. There are good competitors in Germany, no worries there. But then the question is what will happen with the investments that were announced by Mrs. von der Leyen regarding the giga factories we want to build in Europe. We have to wait for the tenders, which will be published in the next few days. And of course, we have support of our partners for these investments, Brookfield, for example, the tower companies are also financed with them, but we also have the Schwarz Group. And if we were to build a giga factory, they already announced that they would join in, and this reduces the risk for Deutsche Telekom. You asked about the towers and the tower business. This was a question raised by [ Mrs. Muir ] And you asked whether we are opportunistic in this area. Well, first of all, we started to privatize German towers, and we found Brookfield as a partner. We now hold 49% of this company. And in the European companies, we outsourced the towers into individual companies. We have not decided yet to put them on the market, but it's an option that we have, but an option that we have not used yet. And this would give us even more financial opportunities, and this will be used as soon as it seems to make sense and value generating. In the U.S., we don't own the towers anyway there. The towers are owned by large tower companies, and we only lease them. So we do have a strategic partnership with the company. We are very happy about the cooperation and the results, and Mr. Langheim is responsible for this. And as soon as Mr. Langheim gets involved, it will work, and I don't have any worries about our towers. This leads me to the topic of price increases in the United States and whether we could manage to increase prices there. Yes. This is one possible conclusion. It always depends on the market environment and the market dynamism, but the Americans also see this as a possibility to grow earnings. And how far are you affected by the tariffs in Germany? This is a question to Mr. Illek basically, but I will take it over now. We always produce in the relevant country. We always are local with our networks, and this is true for our networks. This is true for our data centers. And so the tariffs do not affect our core business. There is a certain relevance if it's about procurement of end devices. For example, for T-Mobile U.S., devices or components of devices are now imposed by taxes and the devices are getting a little more expensive, but the Americans will pass on the higher costs to the customers who will have to pay more for the devices. So a short answer to the question is that the tariffs and the entire debates about tariffs are negligible to Deutsche Telekom or are even irrelevant. This leads me to sustainability. Mr. Speich asked about the adjustments for climate and diversity and say on climate during the AGM. Well, Mr. Speich, we did not change any of our goals. After achieving our balance sheet climate neutrality, we'll continue to work on these goals, and we will stick to our goals regarding carbon emissions and energy consumption and circularity. This is a term we haven't used today yet. And transparency is of utmost importance for us, and this is why we also have an external report on this topic. We do not plan a say on climate for the next AGM and such a vote is not required. Currently, it is not recommended by the German Corporate Governance Code. Well, we should just do it and not just explain it. We want to be transparent in our reporting. We work to achieve our goals. And as long as we are successful regarding our carbon goals, this is more important than just explanations, but I'm still committed to this. The ecological situation is of utmost importance for our company. And this is the end of my questions.

Yes, perhaps I can take up say on climate from the point of view of the Supervisory Board as well. We don't have the ambition to have it in the next AGM. And Mr. Hottges, well, what else do we want to vote on?

Well, you have the possibility as the AGM not to grant relief on the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board. And so this is sufficient. We will not have a say on climate in the next AGM.

And now we move on to Mr. Illek.

Okay. Let me start with Mr. Beckendorf's question, whether we stick to the yield, the capital yield of 9%. First of all, the simple answer to the question is yes, but perhaps some more background information. We calculate this after tax. Not everybody is doing this. And there are no adjustments that we apply. And this means that in 2024, we had return on capital of 8.5%, which was a little lower than before, but this is a nonrecurring effect, and this gave us strong tailwind. And now we expect special costs regarding U.S.cellular, which are reducing the return on capital. But for the following years, we expect roughly 9%. The next question by [ Mrs. Muer ] is similar Capital Market goal '24. Let me point out the conference on the 25th of February, we've got 2 major challenges along the financial KPIs. First of all, the service revenue in Europe, 2.5% to 3%. And in this context, also the operational leverage. So the ratio between costs and service revenue because the service revenue is not what we wanted to achieve in Europe so far. So we've got 2 yellow lights. But basically, the expectation is that we are in line with our overall targets. Next question, the share price of the Deutsche Telekom share. Why did it go down? And what is the effect of T-Mobile U.S.? Just to give you some background, T-Mobile U.S. on the 3rd of March 2024 was at USD 273. And now we are EUR 273. Why did we go down? Because there is a sector rotation. So the investors went into AI companies. This had an impact on the overall industry. But now taking a look at it, T-Mobile U.S. has a peak value of $210, which is 10% below. And we also had a weaker dollar, which is another 10%. And in fact, this means there was a drop by 35%. If I take a look at the share price of the DT share, on the 3rd of March, we had EUR 36. We are now at EUR 32, so a drop by 10%. So the inherent value of the European business increased, although we have a decrease, but DT had a smaller decrease than T-Mobile U.S. This is explaining what happened at T-Mobile U.S. and at DT. Growth potential, another question by [ Mrs. Muer. ] In Europe. Well, I already mentioned this, and Tim already explained this, T-Systems and the European companies in 2025 showed an excellent performance, whereas the German companies showed a slight decrease. We now expect the German company to come back and to grow and this is also true for the other segments, but all -- for all the segments, we expect growth. Whether we will achieve the revenue corridor I mentioned is still to be seen, but now we are confirming all the goals without -- with the exception of the 2 KPIs where I said we've got a yellow traffic light at present. Macro risks. The macro risks we are facing in 2026 from my point of view, are comparable to what we saw during the Ukraine crisis. Inflation rates and energy costs are the problem here. And you know that we hedge our energy costs over a period of 4 years. So the energy costs for the year 2026 have already been 80% have been fixed, and they are not affected by what is happening on the energy market right now. And now in the mid-run, we do not see any necessity to remove -- to go away from our targets. We have some risks regarding procurement for memory chips and other devices. There, the costs are going up, but we've got a bill of materials there down, and we calculate the expected price increases, and we've got a professional organization, which tries to mitigate price increases. And in other areas, we also have some optimization potential in the procurement area so that we do not expect a negative effect at the end of the year. Mr. Abramovitch, on debts. I do not see him now. I do not know where he is. He asked whether we should reduce our debt much more strongly. Let me give you the debt ratio in the recent years. 2.78x in 2024, 2.62x this year. So we are going down in our debt continuously. And we also got an upgrade by Moody's. And if I take a look at the firepower that we have on our balance sheet, then I can say that we are much better equipped than any other European telecommunications -- services provider. Now on -- okay, there was another topic. Do we have access to the capital markets? You know that we should have a refinancing of at least 2 years, EUR 12 billion bilateral facilities that we can draw EUR 6 billion refinancing needs in the next 2 years, if I remember correctly. So I assume that nothing can go wrong in this area. And then refinancing, interest risks, I mentioned this already. Okay. Let's move on to the next question asked by Mrs. Muer. These were special effects, provisions. We had special effects of EUR 1.1 billion, which were mainly attributable to the European business and the Americans had a major restructuring in the fourth quarter. They took out some management levels, especially in administration, and they focused on the management layer here. This is a program which affected several thousands of people, and this will be in the books for 2025, but only have an effect on us this year. So there are a few thousand people who were laid off in the United States. Okay.

Thank you very much, Mr. Illek. And this leads us to the next block of questions. Mr. Christian Strenger, first, then Thomas Lohninger, Markus Dufner, and Mr. Devran Demir. I do not want to restrict the speaking times further, but perhaps you can do it similar to what the previous speakers did because we've got more than 20 people on the speakers' list, and we would be grateful if you kept it short. Mr. Stringer.

Dr. Appel, ladies and gentlemen of the Supervisory Board and the Board of Management, Dear shareholders, my name is Christian Strenger, and I have been a satisfied minority shareholder for a very long time, and I'm Professor of the Corporate Governance Institute of the Frankfurt Business School. Mr. Hottges is not here yet. So let's start with a more difficult question. There is the topic of whistleblowing, which is more and more important nowadays, and there are currently some news in the press about it. In order to cope with this topic with a good whistleblowing system for employees and customers is something that has just now gained importance again. And this is a system which should also have an external contact and reporting channel, which is easy to access in order to especially make employees safe against repercussions. And Deutsche Telekom has the tool of an anonymous whistleblowing system, but it doesn't point it out very clearly. Because there is the possibility to also report incidents to BKMS. This is important for employees if they blow the whistle on very complex topics, it would be easy to guess who was the whistleblower. So it's important, and I looked into this topic in detail and the independent whistleblowing contact with the BKMS system is not really mentioned. So it would be important to make this a little clearer that you do not only have the TellMe system. I don't have any problems with the TellMe system, but that people also know that they can report their grievances to independent institutions. Now the question, how many people reported an incident in 2025, especially how many employees reported grievances at the different areas. Then ladies and gentlemen, the important topic, how are we faring compared to our European competitors? It hasn't been mentioned so far, but we are excellent here. We are 100% better than all of our European peers. And this is not only good news for the shareholders. And we could then ask ourselves, can't we take over one of these companies if they are quite cheap at present. This would be difficult probably from an antitrust point of view, but perhaps you could knock on some doors whether somebody might be available. And there is another question linking up to this. Are you looking around in Germany and in Europe? And are there any companies who are available and -- and the required financial options are there, as Mr. Illek already emphasized. Mr. Hottges, it's really a pity that you are not in the room right now because I wanted to pay you a compliment I wanted to tell you that you really gave a very good presentation at the beginning. But at the same time, this also triggers a question in the interest of the shareholders because if you can present Deutsche Telekom in such a wonderful and fascinating way, why don't you use this in advertising for Deutsche Telekom? It could be also interesting for us because last year, we granted a slightly higher compensation to Mr. Hottges. So if he is communicating to people directly, it has a wonderful effect, and this could really support the advertising of Deutsche Telekom, and we could perhaps get some of the money that we granted him back. This was one topic. And another one. Mr. Hottges now has the contract up until 2028. Now as he also makes very important and relevant political statements, 2028 will be just before the next general elections. And if we all support this and he is willing to do this, he would be an ideal person for Berlin. There is a lot of work to be done in Berlin, and he cannot change from the Board of Management to the Supervisory Board immediately, and it would also be questionable whether Mr. Appel would admit this, but the German code of Governance says that you have to wait at least 2 years. But Mr. Wintels with his 25% could overrule this regulation. But if I know him well, he won't do this. And so it would be a good opportunity because Mr. Hottges said this very clearly. Some things have to change in Berlin, and we need excellent people in Berlin, people who can perform well. And this would be very, very important. I already asked him the question a year ago in Frankfurt, and he said, no, it's so nice here at Deutsche Telekom. I can understand that. But if the contract expires, he can think about it again. So it would be a good idea if we had such high performance as Mr. Hottges to go to Berlin. I'm sure he will hear it somewhere outside this room. And if he comes back, perhaps he might also answer whether he would be willing to pursue this idea. Well, ladies and gentlemen, 8 minutes are over. That was everything I wanted to share with you, only a few thoughts. And Mr. Appel. So it's all good, but the time for the answers, I just roughly calculated this is twice as much time as the question time. So this is okay-ish, but to tell the shareholders to keep it brief is perhaps a little bit unfair. It would be good for the shareholders to have a little bit more time for the questions. That's everything. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr.Strenger. So we are waiting then for the answer also by Mr.Hottges. Our next question comes from Mr. Thomas Lohninger.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, dear Internet. My name is Thomas Lohninger from the NGO and I represent the shares of the Ethical Shareholders Association. So I speak on behalf of the Internet and of somebody who actually helped to work on network neutrality between 2013 and '16. In 2017 and 2019, I also attended AGMs. And at the time, I said that the product stream on is a clear violation of network neutrality. So it violates valid EU law. And I was right because the European Court of Justice banned the product in 2021. So the highest EU court made clear that discrimination is unlawful also in telecom's rates. In 2019, I told you that the existence of StreamOn keeps data volumes artificially low to the -- at the cost of the population. I based my argument on a study, and I was right. StreamOn was banned. And since then, data volume went up dramatically without added cost for consumers. So the image is always the same. Deutsche Telekom deteriorates its offering and its services and then makes its services scarce and makes these services more expensive. So it's an artificial scarcity. And only if that is removed, the situation for everyone will be improved. We see the same pattern when it comes to interconnecting the Deutsche Telekom network and all the other networks on the Internet. The global standard is to have this interconnection without any charge, bill and keep. Through interconnection, you get global connectivity. And this is what Internet is all about, right? Interconnecting different networks. And you can reach the entire network if you purchase just access. That gives customers a lot of choice, freedom of choice to access any network worldwide. Unfortunately, telecom in this respect, violates network neutrality. 99.96% of all peering agreements are without cost, without charge. So you don't need to pay for this service for this interconnection. It's peering at the same level, and that is the best option for everyone involved. On telecom violates this principle. It's part of this 0.0004% that actually charge for this service. It can afford to do this because of its market dominance. And only within Germany, those who don't pay have difficulty accessing the total network. Only if you want to access other telecom customers, you have to pay a price for this. So we are not talking about small amounts here as the Tagesschau news has reported. We're talking about high amounts of money per money -- per month. We are talking about German research networks that during the pandemic were inaccessible to many during the lockdown, the COVID lockdown because telecom charged too much. We're talking about small regional Internet providers who are flooded with complaints by users because the interconnectivity didn't work. So the small provider has to pay the big monopolist so that their customers can send data into the network. So I'm not surprised that Germany is lagging behind when it comes to network build-out. This is not a small versus big issue because the big players get a discount from Deutsche Telekom. So industry associations like [ CISSPAN ], for example, who only have European members have confirmed that this problem exists with Deutsche Telekom. Allegedly, Deutsche Telekom needs these payments because costs for them are so high because of the high data volume in the network. Do you remember how much data volume Telekom actually gave their users for free with StreamOn? Now this worked from 2017 to 2021. How is it possible that it's now so expensive so that it goes beyond Deutsche Telekom's means? So if [indiscernible] and Spotify send data packages to telecom, they do that because German users are using telecom services. So getting this access is a service that Deutsche Telekom sold to its customers. So we are talking about charging people twice for the same service. So they're getting this from their customers and then from the services that their customers want to use. So the Internet line only works for Deutsche Telekom if 2 parties pay for it and either a hoster or somebody else that pays telecom. Only if the payment is made, data can flow. This is a paid fast lane, and this is a prime example of a violation of network neutrality. That's why my NGO, along with the Federation of German consumer organizations and others have lodged a complaint with the German telecommunications authority. On netzbremse.de, you can find this complaint with all the information, necessary information. And you can also leave a donation there. Now we are doing this on behalf of our customers because they are complaining about this problem. If you look for any help, on the telecom website, you will hear from desperate customers who are all telling the same story. I cannot use this service on the Internet. It's not loading. There is no connection. But if you pay for a VPN, for example, everything works fine. So what can I do? Telecom's official answer is, then why don't you use a VPN. In other words, if the service of your choice is not paid by Deutsche Telekom, you have to pay for a VPN that Telecom offers. And so this is broken Internet. This is a violation of the core principle of network neutrality. There is one thing that really surprised me in this project. how much fear there is on the part of the companies involved, no matter where I looked, everybody has this problem with Deutsche Telekom and the enormous cost for interconnections, but hardly anyone dares to complain about this because whoever does will have to pay even higher cost or will be cut off from maybe 40% of the German market, which is like a death sentence for a European company. So I'm just giving you the truth here. These methods are reminiscent of a Mafia movie and need to be outlawed. And this is why we have the Federal Network Agency, Telecommunications agency. I hope Mr. Muller will remember what they have to do in order to prevent these practices from occurring in Germany. Now let me ask my questions in the remaining 2 minutes. What is the revenue that Telecom generates from interconnecting networks per country? How much costs were incurred from the dismantling of StreamOn? And how many customers inside or outside the European economic area still have contracts with 0 rating functionality. Have you become aware of this aspect in the EU regulation? And what are the -- what is the impact on the company?

So next speaker is Markus Dufner from the Association of Ethical Chair shareholders.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Board Management, Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom AG, Mr. Hottges, Dr. [ Abe ], my name is Markus Dufner, I'm the General Manager of the Association of Critical Shareholders, and I'm speaking on behalf of our 29 member organizations at today's AGM. We represent Mr. [indiscernible] mentioned it already, almost 220,000 shares of many small shareholders. Ladies and gentlemen, this year, my organization celebrated its 40th anniversary. I think that we haven't missed any of the 30 AGMs of Deutsche Telekom AG. My first one was in 2007. I'm especially pleased that [ Thomas Dohmke ] from [ Epicenter Works ] just spoke here at the AGM. I think he addressed the key issue. It's understandable that the complaint was lodged with the Federation of German consumer organizations. We support their demands so we are 100% behind this complaint. And I'm going to give you a couple of more explanations. And we are not going to ratify the actions of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board. Mr. Hottges, how do you handle this situation that there is now a complaint against Deutsche Telekom because of the violation of network neutrality? Ladies and gentlemen, we wish for a responsible and customer-friendly Deutsche Telekom, but we are unfortunately still very far from that. The issue of energy consumption. Mr. Pontzen from Union Investment already raised this issue. Deutsche Telekom is considered to be a sustainable company and emphasizes that it is climate neutral in its operations, but there are gaps due to the quick build-out of your infrastructure and the global data centers that you operate, energy consumption of the company has gone up enormously, an exclusive operation with renewable energies is not planned currently. The energy consumption of data centers is really huge, as you mentioned yourself. Now if you have this insight, why are you not operating these data centers in a climate-neutral way? Some data centers use as much power as a small town. And this is going to go up due to the use of AI, and there's an enormous water consumption because the systems need to be cooled. In Germany, we're still in a somewhat comfortable situation. But if you look at Southern Europe, for example, it's a completely different matter. And studies from the U.S. have shown that gigantic data centers will lead to a deterioration of air quality, water quality at the cost of -- at the expense of communities. And amphibians and small species depend on a natural environment. And I mean from what you said, I got the impression that you're not taking this seriously, the protection of flora and fauna because you kind of joked about it. Mr. Hottges, please be honest how high are the emissions in the supply chain of Deutsche Telekom, when it comes to building service and data centers. Why are you not including the Scope 3 emissions? Because one thing is clear, the infrastructure that Deutsche Telekom is building and is using needs to be sustainable. Another key issue is the plant cooperation with SpaceX and its Starlink system. Basically, the idea to close gaps in coverage, it makes sense, but there are enormous risks because Elon Musk controls Starlink, and he has already demonstrated that the decisions he takes can have global implications, for example, in the Ukraine conflict. Europe, could become very much dependent on one single U.S. company. Also technical utilization is very limited because a very small number of terminal devices has even access to the system. We cannot afford this dependence. Infrastructure has to be transparent and needs to be controlled in the interest of our society. Questions on the U.S. business. Why is Telekom involved in U.S. campaign funding via T-Mobile? And it's not doing that in Germany. And what are the principles that you use to decide which political party to support? Secondly, in your management report, you say that group-wide standards like the Supply Chain Act and the DEI policy will need to be adapted in the U.S. How can you talk about global responsibility if key human rights standards and environmental standards were not maintained in the U.S.? Why don't you have the ISO certification for industrial safety in the U.S. that applies elsewhere? Your U.S. subsidiary has stopped certain DEI programs. It seems after pressure coming from the U.S. government, why did you do that? Deutsche Telekom insists on codetermination rights of its workforce. Why is that not guaranteed in the U.S.? And other questions about group-wide standards and human rights. Your human rights statement is voluntary without any monitoring mechanisms. When will Deutsche Telekom have a human rights governance that is in compliance also with the due diligence in the Supply Chain Act? How do you make sure that there are not double standards used by the company in the U.S. and outside the U.S., which could harm the company? Three questions about remuneration, transparency and ESG inconsistencies. First, why, in the remuneration report, is there no reference to social standards, equal pay as prescribed by some standards? Then Deutsche Telekom actually excludes the U.S. business from its ESG targets. So why are you not including this in your reporting? Third, if the U.S. segment makes up more than half of your bottom line, how can an ESG record be credible if it doesn't take into account your U.S. business? How does Deutsche Telekom want to be globally responsible if the U.S. subsidiary is not included? Secondly, when will your remuneration report also include ESG targets to see that the commercial success and the financial success is fairly distributed? And when it comes to agenda item 7, elections to the Supervisory Board, in the case of Dr. Appel, we would vote no. Item 9, remuneration of Supervisory Board members. We also will vote no. Item 11, we do not approve the remuneration report. Dear shareholders, let me summarize, violation of network neutrality, high environmental burden due to data centers, lack of transparency with regard to Scope 3 emissions in the supply chain made clear that the Board of Management and Supervisory Board are not living up to our expectations. That's why my organization calls for a rejection of ratification of the actions of Board of Management and Supervisory Board. Thank you very much.

So next is [ Stefan Demir], who represents [ Ms. Stenbeck ] and after the next question, we'll answer the questions and then [indiscernible], Mr. [ Ebel Mene ] and Mr. [ Peter Schichl ] will take the floor.

Dr. Appel, Mr. Hottges, members of the Supervisory Board and the Board of Management, dear shareholders of Deutsche Telekom. My name is Stefan Demir, and I speak here on behalf of the umbrella organization of the critical shareholders and its 29 member organizations. As discussed previously, we are at a watershed today for Deutsche Telekom. Deutsche Telekom is investing again, investing a lot in new AI factories and data centers, including the new facility in Munich, plus a lot of international projects for its business customer segment. So progress? Yes. But how are the employees involved in this? What is their share? As a former state enterprise, Deutsche Telekom has special responsibility in this regard. For us, it is clear that we need a democratic and transparent infrastructure. Projects must be shaped such that civil society is involved and that the ecological implications are clearly defined that the interest of society are borne in mind beyond economic interest. And we are seeing double standards here. Employee rights and safety standards are not implemented and covered everywhere. Certain programs have been stopped partly under political pressure. However, employee safety should not be dependent on the mood of individual managers. We believe there should be uniform standards for employee rights and for various processes, including external audits. And certain rights are completely ignored in the U.S. Energy consumption and things like that are not considered for remuneration and we believe that the reasons given are not right. It looks as if Deutsche Telekom wants to make more profits in the U.S. at the expense of the environment. So the question for me is, why is it that Telekom is taking this approach to its U.S. business? Dear shareholders, so environmental pollution employee rights and risky partnerships make it quite clear that the Board of management has failed to meet its responsibility, which is why we demand that the Board of Management not be granted discharge at today's AGM. Another important topic is Board of management remuneration. As CEO, Mr. Hottges received EUR 11.2 million last year, which was more than the usual EUR 11 million. That's the usual threshold. So when you look at the average salary, then we have a ratio of 138:1 here in comparison. Related to median salary, it is actually 589:1. And the entire remuneration paid to the Board amounted to EUR 40 million. And it wasn't quite clear to what extent all this money was connected to specific targets. For instance, providing the right framework for investments and things like that. It's not transparent to shareholders how this can actually be guaranteed. And I would like to ask the Board of Management the following questions. What are your strategic targets? From your point of view, what are -- what is an environment that is conducive to investments? We also think that employees showed up their fair share. [ Verdi ] demands a 6.6% rise and EUR 120 more for trainees. That's the least you can do to make sure that your employees have a fair share of the company's success. Dear shareholders, the decision for us is do we just want to have a Telekom that focuses on profitability and that accepts dependencies or do we want to have a company that also lives up to its social responsibility? We think it is time for a new course, Telekom should take responsibility for its employees, for the environment and for society as a whole. Thank you.

I would like to make an announcement. We are going to restrict speaking time to 5 minutes starting with the next group of speakers. It is now a quarter to 3. I would ask, if you still have any questions, please proceed to the speakers' registration counter because I am going to close the speakers list in about 15 minutes. So if you still have any questions, please proceed to the speakers' registration counter. Now we are going to answer some of the questions raised. Mr. Hottges?

[ Mr. Stringer, ] You mentioned advertising in connection with my remuneration. Now we will consider your proposal and we'll discuss it with our advertising colleagues. I don't think it's a good idea, but let's see what the colleagues are saying. Then you talked about possible takeovers from European competitors, and you wanted to learn more about our investment plans in Europe and beyond. We generally monitor our portfolio, we always keep an eye on several options, and then it remains to be seen whether they will materialize or not. We're not doing any bad deals. If prices are too high, then we opt out. And yes, of course, there are always competitors for every transaction. When it comes to organic growth in the fiber and nonorganic growth. There are several options. And yes, we are generally interested in making acquisitions, but that's all I can say here, anything else would be speculations, and we do not generally comment on M&A transactions anyway. Let me get back to Mr. [ Luninger's ] comments. And to start things off here, it's just not right what he is saying. And I am saying that what he said is wrong. You talked about an alleged discrepancy regarding network fees. Now we are not creating an artificial scarcity of data streams. Any asymmetric data streams as part of interconnection are completely common thing in our industry. The EU regulation on Open Internet expressly allows that we charge fees for peering and transit of data, and that does not breach the rules regarding network neutrality. And according to Dusseldorf, recently corroborated that the transfer of comprehensive data through our lines is a service that we can demand a fee for. Well, first of all, this, it's got nothing to do with our agenda here today. Second of all, if you're not happy with the service we offer, why don't you go somewhere else? And thirdly, in the past, when we exchanged certain network services with others free of charge in the past, and that was because we gave data traffic, and we received data traffic. And if it was about the same amount of data, then no fees were charged. But now about 90% of all the traffic comes from the Internet companies, and we are not charging anything for it, which means that we are covering 90% of the various companies' networks. We need to make sure that we have the necessary capacities for that. And we tried to then reach an agreement legally with other companies, and that wasn't possible because other big Internet companies said, what do you want to do? We just block all your networks with spam and all that other rubbish and that's it. And then I said, okay, if you want to do that, then we want you to pay for it. And I wouldn't know why that would be not legitimate. It's in the interest of the company and of the shareholders. And then we said, if you don't accept that, then we'll take it to court. So we won against Meta in 3 instances and Meta will now pay $40 million to us in damages. So our point of view was actually corroborated in court. That's why I think all your allegations are completely unfounded. You talked about energy consumption and our climate neutrality goal in connection with our data center in Munich. Well, what you said is not true. We are greenhouse gas neutral across our operations. And since 2021, all our electricity in networks and data centers, 100% comes from renewable energies, and that also holds true for Munich. The new AI cloud center in Munich receives 100% green electricity and has a very efficient energy value of 1.2 and 100% of the electricity is green electricity. Plus we have a very innovative cooling solution of the [indiscernible] which is very efficient. And that's when I'm -- what I meant when I said flora and fauna and progress belong together. We want 100% green electricity, but we also want 100% progress in this country. Then you talked about employee interests at our subsidiary in the U.S. Now there are often employees in our industry in the U.S. are not unionized. However, it is always possible to hold elections to form a union. All our employees in the U.S. have a right to join a union or to set up a union. Whether or not this is going to happen is decided by the U.S. employees as part of -- on the basis of U.S. regulations. We generally and globally respect the right of assembly, but we cannot change any existing laws and rules in the U.S. Mr. Singer. You asked whether I wouldn't be the ideal person for the German parliament in Berlin. Well, I thought about that. And what I'm saying is everybody's got the right has an obligation to do something for this country. And I will also say that by doing my job here at Telekom, I am also making a contribution to the competitiveness of Germany as a country. However, I also believe that I don't think I'd make for an ideal politician in Germany. Probably, I'm too stubborn for that, but yes. Well, I still have some time to spend at Deutsche Telekom anyway, so I can still think about it. And with that, over to my CFO.

Mr. [ Luninger ]. You asked about revenues and cost of interconnection. And what are the costs from the discontinuation of StreamOn. I have to disappoint you because we haven't been able to find any data on that. I can't comment on revenues or cost structures here. It's small financial contributions in total, small fees, as Tim already mentioned, so basically, we give data and we receive data and we don't have any numbers on the discontinuation of StreamOn, I'm afraid. I'm through. That was the only question I had to answer.

Okay. I have a couple of questions to answer first from Mr. Dufner. Mr. Dufner, you asked about the remuneration report and you said that would be important for the shareholders to see whether the company's profits are shared on a fair basis. I think it's important to look at 2 KPIs here. First of all, employee satisfaction and secondly, customer satisfaction, reporting began. Needless to say, you can inflate reporting beyond those KPIs, but these 2 are particularly important. You will find them in the remuneration system, which is documented in the remuneration report of the Board and the company has reported extensively about this topic anyway for a long time. and we also report on the number of women in managerial positions and have been doing so for a long time. Of course, you can always demand more, but we believe it's in the interest of the shareholders that the most relevant factors are covered, and that's diversity and employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Mr. Dufner's second question, refer to [ EFSS 1 to 16. ] Of course, we also look at differences in pay. That is analyzed and evaluated. We look at how the salary or the pay of our members of the Board have developed over time and benchmark it against others, and we're not aware of any major -- anything that would give the idea that the pay is inadequate. Then Mr. Damian, you said, please do state your strategic goals. And how can you provide a framework that is conducive to investments. Well, that would be a framework that allows us to generate return on investment on all the investments we make. Strategic goals. Let me give you one example for the CEO. The question was -- can we ascertain that we have a lean organization in place? Can we really monetize our networks? These are the kind of goals. And as for the ESG multipliers, we look at scopes 1 and 2 as a basis. Why that? Why not Scope 3? Because transparency of Scope 3 is still kind of weary and cannot be guaranteed. These were the questions to me. Still any questions pending?

Yes, there's one more. Another question from Mr. Dufner. You asked about a change of programs in the context of diversity in the U.S. Well, first of all, we respect local law in every country where we have a footprint generally. And all of these countries are democratically legitimized and so we respect the basic values and equal opportunities, and this is the compass that we will remain committed in all of the countries where we have a footprint, rights, are not generally violated. And whatever happens in the U.S. is based on U.S. law and U.S. regulation. As for the employees of T-Mobile US, [ Mike Ziebart ], the CEO at the time, made it clear that value such as inclusion, tolerance and a safe environment for all employees to be adhered to. That was made quite clear, and this has also been confirmed by the current management team in the U.S. and yes, this is certainly in line with the gold and the values of Deutsche Telekom overall. Mr. [indiscernible], you asked how much information was disclosed on your employees worldwide? And somebody said that tell me, it's not shared in transparent way. It was said that some information is provided through the tell me whistleblower portal. In 2025, we had 361 compliance-related hints, 275 of which came from employees in the whistleblower system. And whenever there is a hint, we have a special department in place under the responsibility of Mr. Bohle and they look into it. And now the last question, that's about Scope 3 emissions. We said that we use 100% renewables for our data center service and network technology that falls under Scope 3 emissions. And we transparently report on those emissions in our relevant reports. And in our reports, we also make it clear how we want to achieve climate neutrality in the future. And in terms of AI, we have an enablement factor of 1 to 4, that is relevant to us. making networks and processes more efficient, will also help us to reduce emissions further. And by the way, AI is quite helpful in many areas when it comes to improving our carbon footprint. And that's why this is also part of our Scope 1, 2, 3 documentation.

Excellent. And that brings us to the next block of questions. The gentleman that I have just named should step up to the podium to give their presentations and questions.

My name is [ Renard Matias ]. I'm a private shareholder and have been since 1996. So I'm someone who -- so just a retroactive look. I think it's a pity even though I registered before this event, Dr. Appel, and we had problems last year. I think it's a pity that before I even start, you reduce my time. You've been doing it better than last year, but you have room for improvement. And I would ask you because it's not good when you come here as a shareholder. I came from freiburg, and I spent the night in a hotel. And we have tax on our dividends. And you're the only person in Germany that I know, probably because this used to be a state-owned company, where indirect shareholders get to speak first. and then the actual shareholders have to wait till last. So let me briefly trace back over the last few years. In 1996, you went public with an incredible advertising campaign, but as a kind of a weak company, given your past as a state-owned company today, you're a strong company, a powerful company. And you've gotten rid of a lot of the ballast from the state-owned time. Although the state as a shareholder is still around. But this shareholder, the state, has never said that they thought that Telekom is bad. The Supervisory Board and the management Board. And that's amazing, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you what I thought was bad about the last 30 years, though. There's been 3 placements of shares and a lot of -- there's been a lot of ruffled feathers, Mr. [indiscernible] was an advertising figure, regretted doing that advertising for Telekom. And he died 10 years ago, and I took the liberty of researching this, and I'm glad that you've finally reached a phase where you're paying good dividends. And including, closing this gap between [ 332 and 105 ] and that's an achievement of Mr. Hottges and his team. But what really infuriated me as a shareholder over the last 30 years was once you had T-Online listed on a public exchange, what you did and I didn't like that IPO with them. And also there [indiscernible], he was a CEO of T-Systems, he died, unfortunately, 30 years ago. And in my opinion, he did a lot for Deutsche Telekom, T-Connect and I think we should hold him fondly in our memory because I think he did a fantastic job. And preparing for today, I looked more closely at several things that I'm interested in. I've been a shareholder for many years, not just in this company. Mr. Hottges and his team probably know about AI, which answers about 80% of the questions today. I'm not a Telekom customer and need to be acquired. I'm just an average guy. And every producer of every producer of diapers, of nappies knows how much they can sell to consumers, so an average AI should know what amount of sales can be generated in the life cycle of an individual. Do you calculate that because that's an important metric, I think? I have a feeling sometimes when some speakers are up here that they present a skewed picture of Deutsche Telekom and its business. But since I'm here standing in front of you, I'd like to ask about it. And if you terminate my speaking time too quickly, Mr. Chairman then I will object. But first, let me come to my question. If I see things correctly, the business in the U.S. was acquired at some point but not as a subsidiary, but rather through numerous mergers and management work. It's a listed company, which has a very high market capitalization of EUR 250 million -- billion. And as far as I know, it's the only listed company in Germany. You're the only company in Germany that has a successful business in the U.S. That's pretty amazing. Usually, the Americans usually don't -- aren't open to European investors. Just look at what happened to [ Bayer ] and [ Laverkusen ], right? German companies burn their fingers in America usually. But if I understand your strategy correctly, and it would be good if you could explain it more. Do you attach importance to the defacto majority stake? We do have more than 50.1% of the share of their U.S. business is supposed to grow, supposed to pay out dividends. And if it has money left over at the end of the day to buy back shares? And that also brings money into the purses because -- but you don't seem to valuate the shares in the U.S. But if we have 53%, then the CEO probably gets together with the CFO, to decide on whether to sell 1% or so. And then that means a big injection of money coming to Germany. Did I understand that correctly? Because some statements have been erroneous in this regard. So is this a very successful listed company that bears similarity name to the German business but you're actually just the majority shareholder? And does that mean that you really tell them what to do in America. But I would also like to know one thing. I submitted a question, if I submit a question, will I get a written response? Would you agree to that? Yes, I'm glad. I have one request. That's really important to me. A big request and something I don't understand at all. Deutsche Telekom, for me, is really, yes, a blue chip name on the public exchange. And last year, I said I would like to have the staff capital participation. And then it was [ 1050 ], and then it was 2,000 beginning on January 1. But I didn't get a response from you. So I assume it's still 1,000. We talked about capital formation on the agenda and the Head of HR has a huge interest in this. If I look at the website of your Investor Relations. I see [ KWA ], federal government and investors. I understood that shareholders of Telekom but do one thing. You're a beacon in the capital market. And even if you provide a 10% discount, every American company does that. Why are the Americans and their T-Mobile U.S. so successful? Because they know how to motivate people, and I would urge you to do the same, think about it. And then capital investors will respond looking out there, there's twice as many people as we see here. And also the interns that you hire, I think you should give them a bonus.

Well, thank you. You've spoken longer than anybody else, but I still request the speakers to limit themselves to 5 minutes. [ Maximilian ] is next, followed by [ Daniel Verner]. I have an announcement to make. I wanted to say that the registration counter has now been closed. So Mr. [ Abela].

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for Dr. Appel for introducing me [ Maximilian Eberles], my name from [indiscernible] I'm the shareholder representative of #48812. And I have the following observations to make because this is a multibillion company, and we have a speaking time. I need 15 minutes because it's very complex. And you allotted in the -- a huge amount of time to other persons to ask their questions. And that's why I would ask for the shareholders to be given more time to ask their questions. We're talking about a shareholder culture here in a positive light and that we should also be given an ample time. We're not looking for confrontation with -- and you're not looking for confrontation with the shareholders. but some critical questions are going to be raised and have already suggested that the speaking time be increased to 15 minutes, it's worth it. And even if we're here till 10 p.m. then we'll be here till 10:00 p.m., but then we'll -- all the persons involved, all the stakeholders will be satisfied then because I thought that [ LEGO ] thing was pretty childish, but Germany, at least was shown on that little model, but all the other countries you're present in, weren't there. I think you meant it well, but the whole history behind that? And how many countries do you operate in? For example, it's fantastic to look at these nominations here. And I would expect that the Management Board and Supervisory Board would comment on these nominations, but on Page 3 and 4, what they say there. I have my doubts as to whether that corresponds to the truth. I would be embarrassed if this was a sales product because -- and then last year, I asked you about the cost of gas. But I also asked how many people are affected by that -- and of course, how great the expenses were in 2025. I would like to know how much you spent for that. And I would be interested as well. Would it be conceivable that as an on honorary guest for next year that Mr.[ Bauer], the architect of the [indiscernible] building could be invited here because he doesn't live far away, and I think it would be just a show of respect because this building is unique throughout the world. And that's just a positive suggestion and to invite him as an honorary guest to this event. Even though it doesn't really have to do with telecom business, but the following 50 years ago Apple was founded. And -- as you know, that's a huge multinational company with an annual revenue of EUR 400 billion -- dollars. I mean, it's a little weaker now, of course. But that's exactly -- what I'm talking about here the business in the U.S., the dollar is a critical variable in the equation. And how much revenue is generated in the U.S. All of that is subject to this currency risk. And how about other countries, though, like Africa, they're considered to be growth drivers? Where do you see potential out there with real sustainability which will really drive growth at this company. And in the coming 5 years, up to 2030 the average salary in Germany is EUR 80,000. You said 10 minutes. And I think it's impolite if for no reason, you shorten my speaking time.

Can you just ask your question? That's what's important.

No question. I see the clock. And I assumed 10 minutes would be allotted time, but I think it's not necessary to cut me short because I want to say a lot more, but it's a pity. But nevertheless, I really cross my fingers for the 190,000 employees here. And in closing, I'd just like to observe -- I'd just like to ask the quota of severely disabled persons at your company and another recommendation positively meant as a former employee who has died now and I think next year, we should have a moment of silence for all those who are no longer with us. And I thank you for your attention and hope that this event continues to get traction as a positive event.

Yes. Next, Mr. [ Verner], and then [ Peter ] and then we'll answer the questions.

Yes. Good afternoon. My name is [ Daniel Wanamaholder], and I am a customer, shareholder and a citizen of this country. And in these 3 functions, I have a few comments and some questions addressed to the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board. My first point is about the fourth migration of Mega 12.0, if when you have MagentaTV, just some background. I used to use the media received. I was highly satisfied and I could watch programs over and over again when I stored them. But now it's gone this piece of technology will be gone. It's c***, and I got a MagentaOne box. I hope it works. And the target date was the 31st of March. And I was wondering whether the date of the AGM is in direct context. I will be surprised whether it works or not, but the following questions on this. Has there ever been an agreement with the users, whether they wanted to have this forced migration being a restriction I think it's rather autocratic and not democratic to just switch off this technology. What would have been the additional costs if you still had a parallel operation of the old system? What are the experiences so far by customers who had problems? Who didn't have any problems? Will you have further adjustments regarding the user interface if the experience is not so good. I heard that with EPG, the function is not very good and people are not satisfied. But the main point, why Google? Without Google, you will not get an image and TV any longer, and I don't like it. First of all, coming back to your refusal Mr. Hottges, to switch off the copper network, I think it's good that you have such clear view. But for Magenta 2.0, there was no problem to just switch it off, to retire the system. Isn't there an alternative to Google, this data stealer? I think you are giving the data for free. In Munich, it's different for the business customers, you use SAP. But for the normal people in the street, you have to use Google and you can't do it without it. Just a question, was there money paid from Telekom to Google or from Google to Telekom? Or is this a win-win, loose situation? So Telekom win, Google win and customers lose because we no longer have the option to choose. Then the next point. I really try to be quick. T-Mobile U.S. For me, it's quite worrying that we are so dependent from the U.S., the revenue from the U.S. And this is market in a country which is led by a dilettante, by an autocrat. And I would like to know about your strategy in this country. There was the strange meeting, which Trump in 2025, where Zuckerberg and Altman and Cook and everybody were there. Was Mike Sievert involved as well, did Mike Sievert that get an invitation, did he follows this invitation? And secondly, would Mr. Gopalan be invited in a future meeting and would he come or wouldn't come? Well, T-Mobile U.S., the task of the DEI program is a political statement. This is something that you have to be very clear about. It's a statement a political statement, if you wish it to be or not. And perhaps, you could have done it in a better way because this is really now a stain here. Then fourth point, fiber rollout. Last year, I asked you, do you see the end of the road regarding the requirement of speed and volume on the part of the users. I have to say that I'm absolutely happy with DSL and copper cable and if I don't have to, I will not use fiber. So you already said that you won't switch off the copper lines, it's not yet imminent, but I would really feel bad if somebody would just tell me, ESL and the copper line, while it works. My experience is if a piece of software is renewed, then it's really very difficult I would say, never change a winning system. And here, I see the light flashing, I'm very sorry. I'm not finished by far. And I would like to continue. So banning smartphones from the schools. I also asked it last year. People always say the media competencies of our youngsters have to be improved. It's just like sitting in a boat where the water is already coming in and then you start teaching them swimming without giving them the rescue rig. So what is the impact on your revenues for example, for many hours per day, the mobile connection will be switched off for young people. We have responsibility for our people. And AI in soft toys is crime. It should be banned. And we're not talking about sustainability now, although I have to say it's euphemistic to say, we will just give the heat to the [indiscernible]. It was its name then. Wouldn't it be possible to just use this heat for district heating? You create heat, and you then hand over the seat to the municipality to the utility, and they will have warm water and warm plants. Then the psychological footprint of your activities are very important. And this leads me to the topic of AI is the Pandora's box that we have opened. It's a technology, which combines blessing and curse. I will not say that it's all bad, but a lot is bad. And especially if applications are moved to the Internet and are exposed to everything. You can have cyber attacks fake news.

Can I ask you to ask your questions because we have been talking 2 minutes too long already? I didn't get this. Please come to your questions now.

Okay. My question is, what is the ethical attitude of Deutsche Telekom and especially you, Mr. Hottges regarding AI, especially regarding cyber abuse, manipulation the gates are open, especially for aggressive cyber applications. regulation is required. Do you want the users, developers and the connectivity providers such as Deutsche Telekom to make certain -- to take certain precautions. I think it's not good if you just leave it to the parents. AI is something that has now escaped into the world, and now you are trying to get it in again, but this is -- it is too late in many areas already. Now I have to skip a lot of the things I plan to say, which I think is a pity because it's important for me as a customer, as a stakeholder and as a shareholder. Mr. Hottges, please be responsible. AI is a technology which is might be much more of a curse than a blessing. Talk about the bad points of AI and please accept that some people want to have an analog life and still want to control their own lives. And I would like to pay a complement to the call center employees, the agents of Deutsche Telekom because if you really want to talk to a real person, where you can perhaps exchange jokes and sometimes also call. This was also working very well, and I always got gave 5 stars. I got another message asking me to give an assessment and I will send a very good one because it was good. Well, of course, perhaps at some point in time, people might say, it's Mr. [indiscernible], again. He doesn't want to talk to the chatbot. I will immediately lead him to the real person. And this is really why I want to talk real human beings.

Thank you very much, Mr. [ Verner ] then we've got Mr. [ Trian, ] and then we answer questions, and then we'll have another list of people.

But first, Mr. [ Streich ]. Ladies and gentleman my name is Peter Streich, and I represent my family's own shares. And when I say, ladies and gentlemen, I'm really talking to everybody because the gendering is something that I do not like. I want to have a clear language, and this is also true for the critical shareholders. This is really an insult because this also means that people who are not part of the critical shareholders are stupid and idiots. No, everybody here invested into the share, but he also have to take into account that everybody has the same value. The presentation at the beginning given by Mr. Hottges really deserves our respect. It was wonderful. And if you retire in 2028, all the Federal chancellors would be happy to have you as the department head of the press department. But you would probably lose 97% of your income, but perhaps the remaining income would still be enough to buy some Telekom shares for your grandchildren. Mr. [ Strenger ] already said this. Yes, you have to go to Berlin. Perhaps you say this person is too, talking too much, but I have 70 years experience in politics, and I saw that many people who were very aggressive in the beginning, but were then tamed down in politics. And probably this would also happen to you, and we can talk about it bilaterally, if you wish. You also said that the group uses a lot of AI, but I also think you've got the Easter bunny also as one of your employees because I was suddenly moved backwards in the list of speakers. I got on the list together with Mr. [ Strenger ], but then I'm 8 places behind him. I would like to praise you that you have a face-to-face meeting here. And I will also tell you one, democracy sometimes is a nuisance, but it also need some meetings until 9, 10, 11:00 in the evening. More than 55 years ago for two terms of offices, I worked as a scientific consultant and the best times were after midnight. You learned a lot. That was really democracy when most of the members of parliament were tired, you really could talk the truth. So perhaps we should really say 10 minutes for everybody or 15 minutes for everybody. But let me come back to this chair. I will appeal to you not only to the benefit of the Telekom share, but to support shares in general. For several reasons, we will not be able to pay pensions in the future if you don't have shares. There is a misdistribution of wealth and you need shares. And if AI does not only replace experts, but liquidates experts, it's difficult how to manage your life. So you have to invest in shares over and over again, and you should not have a tax discrimination. Mr. [indiscernible] has said that you wanted to give a benefit to the shareholders as compared to workers or employees. No, this is absolutely wrong. This is improvement, an improvement for all the dividends for the smaller people to 100% and for the richer people, only 11%. And then the disappearing Board member for technology has been mentioned before. But the question is, will the company also be able to request money from him because this is also possible if somebody leaves so quickly. I think the Supervisory Board was sleeping too much. A [indiscernible] always asked what is the difference between [ dog's hut ] and the Supervisory Board? And this is really telling you that the Supervisory Board is not used of any use. But now the United States. I've got a very specific question on that. Deutsche Telekom, United States is paying something for the 250 years celebrations. This is the celebrations of the independents. Is it ruled out that money of Deutsche Telekom of us of the employees is flowing into this building of the new hall by Mr. Trump. And the U.S. President in order to be careful, has very interesting ideas. If he comes up with the idea and says, well, my [indiscernible] colleagues phone so much, but then all this money will be given to T-Mobile U.S., and he will say that the profit is going to the [indiscernible] Germans, well, we have to ask about the taxes. Is there a possibility to fight against this? And I already see the red light flashing, but red is a wonderful color of love and blood that it's always seen as negative here. I don't really like it.

Could you please ask your question?

I am on it. So how many sponsors -- how many -- how much is sponsored, how much does Telekom sponsor Bavaria Munich and the Telekom baskets and the cultural field? And the last question on the Football World Cup. What made you give the money -- the good money of Deutsche Telekom to one of the most corrupt persons in the football world, Mr. Infantino. I read that the two broadcasting stations are paying EUR 172 million to the FIFA and how much are we paying? How much did we pay? Will this be a profit or a loss for us? Thank you very much, and have a good Easter period.

We'll now move to the answering of the question, and then I ask Mr. Hannes, Mr.[indiscernible] and then Mr. [ Floain Ella ]. The only question that you asked me, if I remember correctly, and I'll have to check it up, you asked me, we can invite the architect of the Telekom as an honorary guest here. Well, we have never discussed to invite guests here to the AGM, but I think we should rather be careful and not invite any special guests, but we will take it up, and we will discuss this. Perhaps we can invite guests in the future. And now over to Mr. Hottges.

So Mr. [indiscernible] question. So if the stake in T-Mobile rather than selling them, if we keep them, whether this would be profitable, yes, it's true. We can generate cash through this. But we said at the start of the year that we are not going to sell into the share buyback program because it's a high-value asset. So it's worthwhile keeping our stake and even raising it in T-Mobile U.S. So definitely not below 50%. How much revenue do we generate in the U.S.? Are there any activities planned in other countries? First of all, 2/3 -- roughly 2/3 of our revenue comes from the U.S., 21% in Germany and 10% in the European portfolio and 3% comes from T-Systems. Now what we are doing now, and we've seen this before, whenever we somehow ramped up our activity somewhere, it's in those markets that are going well. So we're not going beyond this right now. We're not expanding the current portfolio right now. So nothing is planned on this score. Customer acquisition, what's the average revenue per customer across the life cycle. So revenue, earnings per customer per life cycle, we don't publish those figures. We report the KPIs, and we basically manage value comes before quantity and we reward long-term loyalty. But the life cycle revenue, we don't report this publicly. What is the ratio of people with severe disabilities in 2025 was 7.75%. So there's a legal requirement of 5% of the workforce, and we are above that legally required ratio. So we've always felt committed to people with serious disabilities, and this will not change. So we are above the legal requirement. So these were my answers.

So let me pick up here. Mr. [indiscernible], you are mentioning the credibility of including the U.S. business in our ESG reporting. So we actually don't separate the segments. So we, of course, include the U.S. segment in this. You mentioned a group-wide human rights governance system by including T-Mobile U.S. So Deutsche Telekom faithfully implement the requirements of the due diligence in the Supply Chain Act. Deutsche Telekom as an independent stock-listed company -- T-Mobile is an independent stock-listed company. So it is subject to U.S. regulations and not German regulations. So it is not impacted by German legal regulations.

Mr. [indiscernible], you raised the question about the number of customers with 0 rating and network neutrality. So with regard to the 0 rating customers, I don't have any figures that I can share with you. We, of course, comply with all legal regulations. I pointed out before that we report to 230 agencies, authorities. So we are permanently monitored and there are no problems that we needed to talk about. Is there a commitment to network neutrality as part of the Digital Network Act?

So first of all, of course, we championed the open Internet. We also committed to a flexible legal framework within the European Union. However, we think it's very questionable that the EU is now missing a chance to adapt the current rules to modern technologies like 5G slicing, and that's why we call for an innovation-friendly legal framework. We are committed to a high-performance open network, and we have always pointed out that we will stick to the law. When it comes to the data traffic management and the interconnecting with other networks, We, of course, respect the open Internet regulations in Europe. Line network neutrality, as Mr. [indiscernible] is calling for, would lead to a dire situation that everybody has the best possible bandwidth. It sounds good. But if you operate a machine, a robot that has to respond in milliseconds. And if you download a video or send a text message and you need milliseconds, then I don't understand why the fastest capacity must be available to everyone. It's not logical. You won't find it in China or in the United States. It's, again, an invention of the European Union, and it will harm our economic future. So my appeal is that every service, of course, has to be available to every customer, but there has to be an option to differentiate our services according to the technological requirements that we have, whether it's a robot, whether it's an ambulance or a police patrol vehicle because the networks today can provide this differentiation. So we don't want a blind network neutrality definition, but a differentiated network, which supports the performance of our economy.

So now let's move on to the complaint that was lodged on this issue. I think I've made a clear statement here. The higher regional court in Dusseldorf has confirmed our legal perspective on network neutrality. So this demand in terms of -- in terms of the fair share when it comes to peering, has been upheld by the German judges.

Now next topic, waste heat in Munich from the data center. It's good that you're raising this question, Mr. [ Werner ] because I -- obviously, I didn't -- I wasn't clear enough in terms of the Eisbach Now the Eisbach, we get water from this river. The data center, of course, heats up the water. We use the heated water in order to heat basically the entire area, the Tucherpark in Munich, and the waste heat goes into the heating system, which cools down the river again. And after the water has cooled down, it will be again discharged into the river. Now this is an optimal use of waste heat, and this is also in line with the EU regulations with national law and in the Munich case, also local requirements. This is exactly what we are managing to do here with the distance heating network that we have set up along with the data center. And I think it's an exemplary situation. Now let's move on to human rights standards. As an international group, of course, there is always a tension that we have to navigate between different sets of laws. In Europe, we have legal guarantees of for equal opportunities and EU regulation on gender quotas, for example. And we are pursuing these objectives as they are stipulated. The Board of Management also makes sure that the requirements of the German government -- Corporate Governance code is complied. And T-Mobile U.S., of course, is always in line with applicable U.S. regulations and legal requirements, which we pointed out before. And they don't do anything that violates our set of values. Mr. [indiscernible], you asked about the lack of the ISO certification 45044. So on industrial safety, we make sure that in terms of industrial safety, all applicable rules are complied with. Secondly, certification with this ESO standard is not necessary. Wherever a tender requires it, we will always implement the necessary requirements. And the DEKRA, for example, is a certification institute, which will always confirm our compliance in these cases. You also talked about the global footprint. Now Deutsche Telekom has a footprint in 50 countries worldwide. Mr. [indiscernible], you raised the donation T-Mobile U.S. for the 250th anniversary celebration in the U.S. and the construction of the ballroom in the White House. Now T-Mobile U.S. deliberately did not donate any money to the ballroom, but the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which includes the White House. T-Mobile has no influence on how the money of this fund is spent in Washington, D.C. I mean, it's a common practice for U.S. companies to donate money to this organization. And of course, it's a duty and it's also our commitment to do this on the occasion of the 250th anniversary celebrations. Mr. [indiscernible], you talked about growth potential and real sustainability and the fact that this provides some tailwind for us. I absolutely agree. Our customers are very much aware of whether we act sustainably or not. And also our human rights record. If you consider our campaign against hatred in the web or environmental issues, you can see that we attach great importance to this and also to communicating this, we see the biggest impact in the interaction of sustainability and digitalization, especially energy-efficient networks, with high resource efficiency to somehow translate this into practice. The sustainability issue is not just an ethical issue for us, it's also an economic issue. I don't need to tell you if you can save on power, on energy now because you have smart networks, you will save a lot of money. And suddenly, sustainability becomes an economic factor. And then everybody enjoys doing this. So especially when it comes to energy and circularity for us, it makes economic sense, and this makes it even more important. Mr. [indiscernible] asked about double standards, U.S., Europe when it comes to the brand and reputation, now the Americans use the T. They use the brand in an identical fashion. The fact that we are the most valuable brand in Germany, well, not just in Germany, but the most valuable brand in Europe ahead of companies like Adidas and Mercedes. And it's due to the fact that our, that we have a very consistent approach to our brand worldwide. We present it very consistently. T-Mobile U.S. pays license fees to us for using our brand in the U.S. And T-Mobile U.S., like all other -- like all of our other companies are subject to national legislation, national law. So we always have to fit into the respective legal system and customs also. Mr. Werner, you asked a question about the DEI program at T-Mobile, and you said that we had given it up and what it really means to us. Now diversity, equal opportunities and the conviction not to be party political, but to act as a company on the basis of sound values. Well, I like T count on me is the U.S. translation of our German slogan. So you can see these identities match. The U.S. government with a view to the DEI programs has made new legal requirements, and these were published, and we have been very transparent. Of course, we need to comply with these requirements.

Next question from Mr. [indiscernible]. The demand for bandwidth and high speed keeps growing. The data volume in our fixed line network goes up by 15% every year. That's why we set our faith on fiber because it's much better. I remember AGMs when we were criticized by many people for not having any fiber, no fiber network. And now we are leaders in fiber build-out. Of course, not everybody feels the need to purchase a fiber connection, but we need to act early. We cannot start acting when people feel the need to purchase fiber. So we have to act now definitely. So we will keep working on this. And we are by far the leader and far ahead of other investors when it comes to fiber build-out. And in the future, you will be happy that this management here actually pursued this build-out so strongly because it will make sure that we are a highly profitable company in the future.

A question by Mr. [indiscernible] whether a windfall profit tax is planned in the U.S. I have no information that the U.S. government is planning a windfall profit tax. Mr. [ Sticher ] there was another question whether after Mr. [indiscernible] left, there were still any claims from Telekom. Well, if certain things develop differently from what we expect, then we -- some claims might arise, but we don't have any current claims. So this wraps up the answers to the questions from the last block. And now Stefan Heinz is the next speaker. We have 17 requests for the floor still on the list. So I would like to ask every speaker to really stick to their 5-minute time allotment. Stefan Heinz. So Stefan Heinz does not seem to be here. So let's move on to Mr. Oswald.

Mr. Oswald, should I call up someone else first? Okay, then Michael [ Zalton ] will come to the stage. Where is Mr. Zalton? He's not here either. Then I think Mr. Oswald is ready to take the stage.

Well, is Mr. Heinz here? He should raise his hand and Mr. Zalton. Well, you can see that it really makes sense to limit speaking time. Mr. Oswald, finally. So you cannot just violate shareholders' rights. You have to play by the rules because every shareholder has certain rights according to the German Stock Corporation Act, and you need to comply with them even if you don't like it. Maybe you have some plans for tonight. Today is April 1. Maybe it's an April fools prank, all of this, including the 5-minute speaking time limit. Mr. Hottges, why are you smiling? Would you like to take a peek because I've brought along some newspaper articles. This is what things look like in law in my hometown. I just wanted to show you what's happening there on the ground. I will explain this in a minute. Mr. Hottges I will come to your seat later. So don't worry, everybody would get something to -- so just forget about the 5 minutes. So I will submit a motion later because this simply won't -- I can't cram it in 5 minutes what happened in law. I was here before and I brought some newspaper articles. I showed them to you, and you asked me to -- I mean, you said you would look into it, but it has not been solved, resolved the problem, the fiber problem in my community. So just read the newspaper articles. Every week, we have full page articles on what's going on there. So it's very hard to describe this in words. My computer just shut itself off. I will just start. And if you interrupt me, I have a number of motions I have filed a counter motion. Actually, my speaking time cannot be limited. So how do we handle this now? Because counterproposals, I can submit them. I can read all of them out or we agree on a different procedure on a deal maybe should we strike a deal? So my name is Heinz Oswald. I will comment on agenda items 1 to 11. I welcome all the listeners, the owners of Deutsche Telekom. Ladies and gentlemen up here are our employees, by the way. So let me point out some things very clearly. My special thanks, and I'm serious, goes to the employees of Deutsche Telekom for their commitment and for their hard work last year because it's them that they have really generated this big success. So now we are back to the comedy really of a telekom AGM. There are members of the Management Board and the Supervisory Board. There are shareholders and the shareholders are like puppets on a string because shareholders' rights are trampled upon by Deutsche Telekom managers. My speech is one big question. And I hope I will get some answers in this dialogue with members of the Board. Mr. Hottges, your sales pitch at the start of every AGM is fascinating for me every year. You do a great job. You are a sales genius a real professional. You're a natural -- when it comes to your marketing skills. That's a hard act to follow. Thank you very much for this. It deserves a round of applause.

And I don't think any representative from another tax company can keep up with that. Well, usually, I like to hand out red cards. But this time, it's a green card. And for you, Mr. [indiscernible], I still have yet another color. Can I ask that you ask questions now. Did I miss here? Sorry. My hearing aid is not working. Mr. Oswald. Let's play the same game as last year then -- it was very interesting. What you told me after last year's event, but why don't you continue for now anyway?

You keep on interrupting me. And if at all, you need to speak more quietly, I don't understand your dialogue because I am from Bavaria. But that's not a problem. I think we'll be able to communicate somehow and understand each other. So Mr. Hottges, like I said, I really like how you kick things off at the AGM. And yes, who else who's going to do that once you've left the company. I'm really worried if you'll be able to find somebody else. Maybe [ fine ] because I remember when he was at Deutsche Parkz, he would step up his remuneration five times a year as CEO. Mr. Hottges, what I dislike is that after the COVID pandemic, you increased your remuneration by 50%, I then file a counter motion, which is on display at the peakest registration count. So these spikes in remuneration don't make sense to me. And so I do praise you when you deserve it, if you don't deserve it, but I also appraise you if you deserve such a rise in pay. Can I ask you quite openly I mean this is the AGM of a global company. Is it -- well, is this just a major museum of bureaucracy with lots of optical fiber all around us. I mean even in a small town with 16,000 people, we often see hybrid events. Why is it not possible for Telekom to also organize hybrid AGMs? Hybrid AGMs are the only acceptable solution for a shareholder. For instance, last year, I also wanted to show up, but then I wasn't able to because I was ill, but then I would have been able to follow or attend the AGM online. So therefore, can I ask politely that you finally introduce hybrid AGMs. That would be modern communications. So how do you organize the meetings of the Supervisory Board and the Board of Management -- in a hybrid fashion or differently. I don't mind, by the way, if you answer my questions straightaway. Mr. Hottges. So a lot of people out there are wondering why Telekom is investing billions in optical fiber only to see that Elon Musk is offering mobile coverage everywhere, be it at the Kilimanjaro or in my home via satellite, what's going to happen in 3 or 5 years from now when people no longer even need a line, a fixed line because they can use the Internet at much better cost on a mobile basis. And by then, we will have invested billions, money down the drain. So that can have a major negative impact on Telekoms business. Maybe Telekom will cease to exist if Elon Musk offers Internet to everyone via satellite. Then again, you have a major advantage with the optical fiber because you can transfer a large amount of data, but then maybe Elon Musk will be able to do the same before long. When do you think will Telekom be at the end of its [ weights ] here? Do you think you'll be able to really beat space -- more money is invested there in space. I would guess, trillions. That's the future. So it's optical fiber, something that will become obsolete before long. That's my question to you. And so now let's be honest here. Why is it that Telekom red tape is more complicated than within land revenue, why do we need approvals from different parties before we can send out a bulldozer to lay the next cable for a fiber line. Wouldn't it be better to use experienced staff instead, people who know how to solve problems rather than just using fancy PowerPoint slides and sending out the wrong people to do it. When will Telekom finally become a company that gets down to business rather than just performing endless tests. Optical fiber. Let's talk about optical fiber plus or glasfaser plus. That's actually the name of that company. What went wrong in companies such as [indiscernible], the so-called snow white city. Construction projects were halted and all that under the magenta flag. Is this what progress at Telekom looks like today? I brought a couple of newspapers here, in the reports there and online, you can find pictures and videos of the construction site, you can see that people are really upset about it. And I also talked about it with Dr. Illek. He didn't even know about it and even sent them some information in writing. That's why I brought these newspaper articles here, and I've got more. Just so you know what's happening out there. But you don't know anything about it, do you, I think you actually need to go to some places yourself to see what things are like. The biggest joke in Germany and of Germany -- sorry, in Germany and Telekom. And now let's talk about the empty content. Why is it that Telekom trying to lay new lines next to empty contents. Is this part of your sustainable management philosophy? Or is this what you would refer to as the network rollout of the future? I hope you've understood what I'm saying here, Mr. Hottges. So we have empty content he saying. And so you take our tranches right next to these empty conducts.

Yes, I think we've understood that. You have spent 14 minutes for talking. So please come to an end here. Please don't put me under pressure. Otherwise, I'll have to file yet another motion

Was there a comment from the audience? Thanks anyway. So back to the empty content, that's a real problem, Mr. Hottges, you should look into that. It would certainly help you to save some money. So is this what you call sustainable corporate governance? Or is this the dual network rollout of the future. Look, the customers are waiting for the Internet. You are tearing up the roads to lay new cables, but then we have a lot of these empty contents that are not used. Even a lot of your employees are just shaking their heads because they don't understand what's going on. So if you've been more farsighted you would have been able to lease out the empty contents to GlasfaserPlus. This could have saved you millions, even billions possibly. You would have sped up the network rollout, you would have gained more customers, and it would also have been better for the environment. And at the same time, you would have made a lot of money by using these empty contents. Why have you never done that? This is my question to you Fiber lines via empty contents, that will be good. And then how about your construction sites? How is it possible that your construction partners had to be stopped in different regions because their work was simply a disaster. I occasionally send pictures to Mr. Bohle. I hope that she forwarded them to you, Dr. IIIek, and you Mr. Hottges. For years and years, I've been sending her some of the newspaper reports. So who looks into that at Telekom? Who takes responsibility if underground, we only have pieces of cable. Do you think that quality is important at all? Or does it only matter to you how fast you can dig the next trench?

Can I ask that you come to a close, please? And you've been saying for the third time that this would mark the end of your comments.

I'll be done in a moment. But you keep on confusing me here. So when it comes to the empty contents, everything would have been much more cost efficient and faster if you had made use of these empty contents, and it would have been much better for your customers, too. We believe that costs could have been up to 80% lower if you had done all that, if you had used the empty contents and manholes more efficiently. So the liabilities of Telekom amount to EUR 140 billion. Now think twice about that. That's so much money. So -- it will certainly make sense for you to save some money. But then you decided to work with this Australian company and -- well, then they took charge of things, and that's yet another reason why customers are leaving the company in large numbers. And now Mr. Hottges in Loa, and the city of Loa, there's something I wanted to show you, as I promised. I have been asked by representatives of Snow White City [ Loa ] to tell you this, to wind up my little speech here, you are granted the honorary doctorate for the fiber rollout in the city of Loa. And I wanted to give you the certificate personally.

So this is the end of your comments. Thank you very much Mr. Oswald. Mr. [ Zalton ] is the next speaker. Zalton is the next speaker, please.

Dr. Wittig, Mr. Hottges. Dear members of the Supervisory Board, team members of the Board of Management dear co-shareholders. First of all, I would like to thank you very much for holding this event face-to-face. That shows good leadership. It stands for transparency, and there are a lot of other DAX companies that are not doing the same, unfortunately. Also I would like to thank you for offering warm meals. I criticized last year that, that was not the case, and it shows that you are considering the shareholders' feedback. And I would also like to thank your staff at the speakers' registration counter. Last year, I criticized that the annual report wasn't available. This year various copies were available. So yes, they are T and we can count on them. And that brings me to my questions. I have several questions. I hope that I will be able to mention them all in 5 minutes. First of all the capital increase, we have talked about this before, so that, first of all, requires an anticipatory resolution. And now abroad, we've seen various capital increases in Spain in Holland and in England, Germany is not investing enough. And the Deutsche [ Acton ] Institute issued a statement recently according to which the funding, and I wasn't aware that there are different kinds of funding. Funding usually comes from Golden Sachs and other banks and then sometimes from Deutsche bank, but they only come in third or fourth. So sometimes they're not even involved in that sort of thing. So my question is in connection with the capital increase, why is it that we don't have enough capital in the German market? And -- my question is, how can we improve things here? How can we make sure that more capital increases will be made possible for the shareholders in this country, too, which brings me to IT and service security. What are you doing in the field of open cloud? That's been the talk of the town for a couple of weeks. Anthropic developed it. Mr. Steiner from Austria now went to one of the big providers there. And then quantum technology, is Telekom active in this field at all? There are two universities, one in Munich and one in [indiscernible] that are very active in this field. Have you done anything to work with them? Because there are 30,000 to 40,000 attacks per day on Telekom alone. And that shows that it's important to do something about it. And at McKinsey, a couple of weeks ago, we heard that an attack was launched. And all the McKinsey data was analyzed and they didn't even realize it. So that shows just how dangerous such attacks can be. And we should look into what quantum technology actually means. With quantum technology, you can detect errors in the system all over the place. Then I have the question about early retirement for employees. How many employees have made use of early retirement auction in the last few years? And how will you deal with this going forward with this program for early retirement? I have several questions actually, what does the age pyramid look like among the IT staff and the gender structure of women versus men is dominated by males. I would be interested in hearing about that. And I have several questions. Was that again. That's good. I'll stop there. And I would thank you for the opportunity here. Wish you all the best, to you and your staff. And we hope that the dividend will continue to rise because you have a lot of stock yourself, yourself on it. I wish you all the best and God bless you. God bless Telekom and the Board of management so that Telekom can continue to grow. .

Thank you, Mr. Zalton for sticking to the speaking time. Florian Erlock is next, and then we'll answer the questions. And then we'll have [indiscernible] and three additional persons.

My name is Florian Erlock. I'm a shareholder and CEO of the Blockchain platform in Europe. Last year, I couldn't take part in the Annual Shareholders Meeting because I had a business trip to China. And I have three topics that I wanted to address today. Louder. Is that better? For me, there's three topics of importance. AI, Blockchain and Compliance. When possible, maybe you could provide me the answers in writing. I sent you them in advance in writing. And also in 2023 at the AGM where you answered my questions in writing, that's actually a good thing. So my question, what's the situation with our AI and Blockchain services in the group compared to total revenue as a ratio of total ratio in 2025 and also the KPIs in comparison with the previous year in 2025 because the share price thrives on expectations. I think that's an important point. Second question is this is rather a statement of fact. I found an old AI article by you new opportunities in customer services through AI. And I took the liberty of looking at the LinkedIn or putting it on my LinkedIn profile because I think this could be used as a model for Telekom going forward to 2030. In my opinion, this supplier possesses a new AI technology called decoding. And the cost of the data center is generic coding is what they do. And I think this is worth discussing Telekom, too. And in closing, I would also note aside from AI and Blockchain, those are the two big technologies of our day and also technologies that Deutsche Telekom should focus on in the next few years in order to generate sales and profit because there's big profit margins on new technologies, and that's what produces dividends. And my last point, I don't want to stretch it too thin with my 5 minutes. Compliance, can you confirm that the Management Board is in full compliance with the corporate governance code. And I would be interested in hearing whether you include or exclude suppliers there because there's a legal notice of 107/22 that it still hasn't implemented. And I would be interested -- and so it's not compliant. And I'd be interested in hearing if they're still not compliant because when I read the corporate governance code, that would have an impact on that. And I would close with a quote of Einstein. If you can't trust somebody with the little things, then you can't trust them with the big things.

Thank you, Mr. Erlock. We'll answer your questions in writing, and that's an efficient way to do things. I found a video of myself in the Internet in Miami of my presentation three years ago. If you look at it closely, you'll see it has the same code as the official video. Then okay. Now this brings us to the answers to the questions and [indiscernible] Alexander onenberg and Sven Huling will be -- have the next questions. They're in the next block. . So Mr. Oswald is going -- has submitted questions. I answered the question about successor planning already. And I'm convinced that we will find a very good successor too. And another question related to my remuneration at Deutsche Post. You said that my remuneration had been increased by 5x. I'll leave that without. I won't comment on that. There's significant fluctuations at Telekom and that depends on short- and long-term programs sometimes then, if it's also related to target achievement over a period of time if they meet all their targets, then their remuneration is much higher than just the fixed part. Mr. Oswald, why did Snow White change her WiFi password, you should know. Because just using 7, she just used 7s to as a password, but so much for Snow White. Look at chats now. We have 250 male contacts, Mr. Oswald. And I have all of them here. And I know the build-out in lower or better than any other city in Germany. Thanks to you. We analyzed all of your questions. We know the background to ASCO, and we know about the properties that haven't been connected, but I don't want to go into such detail here at the AGM. And also, I don't think it's relevant because of data privacy when you talk about things like this year. We have different views of build out. If we did it the way you would like Telekom would be bankrupt. We're very efficient in it. And I could give you a lot of references in the Internet where we document where we've made film clips how we secure quality and the build-out and make sure we don't have any empty pipelines where municipal have laid pipes like you might find in Spain. And I don't think we should discuss this bilateral discussion about Lower here at the AGM. Rodrigo will attend to this and try to make sure that you get some traction there, but I don't think it's a topic for us here. Now turning to your questions. You mentioned hybrid versus in person AGMs. We deliberately decided on this in-person meeting because we want to have a personal exchange with our shareholders. And of course, we could have an online event, and let us know if that's what you would like because the cost are -- if we get the message from enough of you that you want to be on the line fine. But so far, we've received the opposite message that you would like in-person meetings you compared our millions of investment in fiber compared to Elon Musk satellite solution. First of all, satellite can't replace mobile or mobile communications or fixed network. And if you think about all the customers, the numbers of customers in these big terrestrial networks and then the capacity of satellites. And we would have an artificial bottleneck if we did everything through satellites. And besides that, the latency is much higher with satellites than with our terrestrial systems. And capacity and the power of fiber is much greater than satellites and 99.9% of traffic goes through these fiber and mobile networks. And when you think, we should decide to move everything to satellite that don't belong to us that we can't influence and where other regulatory conditions apply. That's why I'm saying it all the more important that we improve our 5G capability and fiber capability because that's where the future of telecom is. And also where in places like rural areas or national parks or in the mountains then will include satellite. Where we need it, will include satellite in our service range. Mr. Osvaldik, you talked about the future viability. Now it's the same question. So I'll go to the next one. When will Telekom finally be a Telekom that acts and doesn't just analyze. And I'm sorry that we analyze so much. And we don't want to work in a hypothetical realm, we want to be doers. And we connect 2.5 million households with fiber each year and at lower cost now than before. So that's why I'm of the opinion that we are doers, and we aren't just sitting back and analyzing things. And if we are bureaucratic, then that's what we're trying to move away from it. Part of our key culture is to cut the red tape, and we're self-critical in that endeavor. And I think that applies to all of us, too. We're -- that's what it takes to become more pragmatic as a company. You mentioned MagentaTV in comparison with Google, Mr. Werner. MagentaTV uses different clients. And on our hardware, we use Android TV client, which then establishes the connection to MagentaTV. And this client still requires a Google account in order to use MagentaTV on Android. And it's also available via other clients and access to these clients is on your set-up box under the rubric of apps. For example, Amazon or Samsung, you can also use -- you can also link into MagentaTV through their apps. But then -- and if you do that, you don't need a Google account. But for us to be able to offer the Android TV platform in this infrastructure, which is used on all non-Apple devices, those are Androids, and then you'll have access to the Google client. I know that it often leads to confusion among customers, but that's the software architecture out there that makes it possible to access services. And then there is a question, what's the ethical attitude at Deutsche Telekom regarding AI. That's a very important question. And to put it in no uncertain terms, we only want to really advocate and use AI where it supports people and protects people. Can AI perform -- or can it ever have control over decisions? No. That always remains in the hands of human beings. And we will not leave that ethical standard with the agent model either. There's even people -- human beings there that look at what the agent does and see if it's correct. And then if it is, then we move one step forward with automation. It's called human machine interface. We have very strict internal review procedures that all AI applications have to go through before they're put into actual use. So we really analyze that, and it's an extremely complex system, but it supports people and it doesn't replace them in their roles. And we have special AI and security teams that are appointed to look at these things. Without AI, though, we wouldn't be able to counteract all these attacks in the cyber space in real time. We need AI to protect our services, our networks, and they help our company to become better on the whole. Mr. Werner, you asked about possible additional costs of parallel operations and the switch over from MagentaOne to MagentaTV and the cost of parallel operations for Germany alone would be more than EUR 10 million if we did ran these parallel to each other and that's why we decided to migrate the platform. We're doing this with our customers. It's a better platform. It's got higher quality and I hope that it doesn't cause any problems for our clients but you have to change software sometimes to further develop a service. And that's the software release that we've just had on our platform. Mr. Salton, you talked about the role of our cloud services in IT. T-Cloud public used to be OTC Telekom Cloud is our own public cloud platform, which we operate in high-security European computer centers. It's in line with all regulations and compliant and has received all the necessary attestations from the federal agency for security. And we tested with a holistic concept for security in terms and we also look at the data privacy protection in an encapsuled environment and go through numerous security tests. So Deutsche Telekom is further developing this and the cloud to and 2,000 cybersecurity specialists are working now at Telekom -- 2,400 rather, finding cloud and security solutions to differentiate our offer from the competition. Open Cloud or T-Cloud Public, as we call it now, is our own European security cloud. It's a central component of our cybersecurity strategy and independence strategy, or sovereignty strategy. Mr. Werner, you talked about the customer experience with the switch over to MagentaTV. I've already answered that question. And if you need more information, just get in touch with us, and we'll find somebody who can help you with the switch over to make sure you can get through it. You talked about our migration targets -- our climate targets rather. These have been agreed upon for the entire group. The climate transition plan includes an ambition 2040. That's Scope 3, we're talking about -- and with the American and the American business is included in that, and we report on our progress and status every year. You talked about the operating interface of MagentaTV and the program guide. I think it's great, but I'm just one user, but our other customers are highly satisfied with this, too. There are some critical voices, and we rely on their feedback to improve. And we reported on promoters earlier, and it's -- their satisfaction with Magenta is very high. You talked about the media receiver for MagentaTV and experience with users with MagentaTV right at the present, the Connect test has been given a mark of excellent, and we completed that test. No TV service in Germany is rated that high. In the development of the new platform, we surveyed users and also took into account their feedback during the development. Mr. Werner, you talked about the role of Google at MagentaTV, I already answered that. By the way, no customer data is shared with Google only because they dial -- because you dial in with the Google account doesn't mean that your data is automatically sent to Google. That's not part of this service. Mr. Werner, you are also talking about possible future meetings between the U.S. President and managers of Deutsche Telekom. Everything that we would say today would be mere speculation. We did not have anything to do with the dinner you talked about. I personally did have never met the American President and regarding future meetings, I can't speculate on this. This depends on what is coming. But at present, there are no plans. ESG criteria. Question by Mr. [ Dimier ] Excluded from the U.S. business and it's not part of the compensation system, special circumstances in the United States, such as rural 5G rollout. What happens after natural disasters are not shown. So apparently, Deutsche Telekom wants to just get the profits without doing anything for sustainability. One, how did you take such path towards the U.S. business. This was what [ Mr. Dimier ] said, the climate goals of Deutsche Telekom apply worldwide also for the United States and this means that we want to achieve our climate goals and this is also reflected in our compensation each manager or this company is partly paid on the basis whether we are sustainable, and this is not happening for all the companies, especially not for all German companies, but for us, it's normal. These goals attained well, regarding the 2 ecological targets in our compensation. We are excluding the United States at present. The aim of the incentivization is always steering the company on the basis of all the sustainable dimensions, there should never be an incentivation where you have way you do not take into account sustainable goals or make economic goals more important. It would be bad for us and you can also see this in our compensation report on Page 40. You partly quoted from this. There are structural differences of the U.S. business because it differs from the business models in Europe and in Germany. But I would wish that we could more integrate the U.S. into the KPIs and the compensation. But of course, in the U.S., we also have to agree things we do with the other directors on our Board. Ban on smartphones in schools. This is, of course, a very difficult discussion that we have on the basis of society. And I think it's good that we have this discussion and it's important to involve experts. We do support these experts also through our foundation. And we also want to make sure that we support the media competencies among students and we want to act against hatred in the web. The debate, the discussion in society and the experts discussions, first need to take place. We will not blame people or point fingers. Otherwise, people would say we are partial anyway. So we leave it to politics and the experts to come up with view. I have my personal view on this, but this is true for everybody. We do not expect any declines in sales, perhaps less data might be used but we do not see any risks for our revenues. This brings me to Mr. Oswald's question why we sometimes have new lines, although we already have empty cable ducts. We use these empty cable ducts if they are -- if they can be used if it makes sense, but this is definitely part of our rollout methodology and we are doing this thousands of times in Germany. I could give you a long list but it's not always possible because sometimes the cable ducts are too short or the stretches are too short or we have too many things in them already. But this is what I leave to my technicians to find the right answers because if the boss meddles into the affairs of experts, it won't get better. And this leads me to the meetings between the Management Board and the Supervisory Board, well, you should just experience some, well, we normally have face-to-face meetings. The management Board meets on Tuesdays almost every day. So we have intensive discussions. And this is unusual for many companies. We really deal with all the individual items on the agenda and projects. Some of these meetings are also virtual. People can dial in from wherever they are. Yesterday, for example, Abolhassan was with the customer, he couldn't be there all the time and he dialed in when he was available. And I do not want to talk on behalf of the Supervisory Board. Over to you. Yes, the Supervisory Board also makes it possible for people to participate virtually. This is also part of our articles of association but we are in favor of a face-to-face meeting here. We don't want to have a hybrid meeting because it would increase complexity. So we will also probably plan to have a face-to-face meeting next year. I already answered the question, the meeting between Zuckerberg, Cook and Altman, these were tech companies, no telecommunications companies were involved, but I'm not sure about all the details. I can tell you, however, that we were not present. Mike Sievert was not invited and did not participate. This brings me to the soccer rights. [indiscernible] you talked about the Football World Cup and the payments necessary for this. For the German market, we've got the media rights for a total of 272 matches, the Men 2026, Women 2027, EU 2025 and 2027. So it's not only the football World Cup of Men, but it also includes others, and we've got a good reach, and this helps us promote MagentaTV. Yesterday was a good day for us because we are happy that the Turks are now also qualified and not only because we've got 400 million Turkish people living in our country because all the games are exclusive to MagentaTV and this means that probably everybody will come to us in order to watch these games. And if you have MagentaTV yourself, then we hope that they will use our connectivity because we see people who use our TV products are also more loyal regarding the other products, and this is exactly our business model to have reliable and good customer service. And we sublicensed some of the World Cup rights to the German broadcasting channels, ARD and ZDF, the German matches have to be shown on public TV and we received a 3-digit million figure, including the advertising plus the new customers who will get for MagentaTV, we assume right now that the investment, which was roughly EUR 200 million will turn out to be a profitable investment for us and that we will have a financial success. You also asked about sponsoring and the distribution of sponsoring costs. Well, if the customers see that we are also sponsoring sports, they are more loyal and they give us a higher Net Promoter Score than other customers. It's just felt element, which is important for the assessment received from our customers. Therefore, it's necessary. In 2025, we spent EUR 368 million for sports sponsoring for donations, roughly EUR 27 million. And in 2024, it was EUR 314 million and for sponsoring EUR 33 million, respectively. And it's important for us that it always is in line with our values. We know we never only focus on one sports, Bayern Munich in soccer, but we also do it for other sports and for local initiatives. For example, the Telekom baskets for all people living in Bonn, we just extended the contract. Mr. Osvaldik, another question on the quality assurance in civil engineering, I already comprehensively answered this question and I will ask my team to send you video material and expert material so that you see what we are doing. And Mr. Diehl will do this personally because you also need something to do. Mr. Elek, do you still have questions?

Yes, one. I got a question by Mr. Zaltan. Based on our top 8 regarding the increase of the authorized capital ask why do we have more capital increases in Germany, why don't we have more capital increases. This is always adequate means, but we also have to be aware that the earnings per share is going down then. We now want to have this item on the agenda in order to have the flexibility for our corporate financing in the future to also do a capital increase but we first of all, want to finance our investments from our free cash flow. And this is the last way out. This is a possibility, but this is not a usual financing tool for us. And this leads us to the next round of questions. First of all, [indiscernible].

I'm sorry, this was not part of a program. This was not intentional.

Sorry Members of the Board of Management, Members of the Supervisory Board, ladies and gentlemen. I will try to be brief and I do not want to destroy this glass, let me put it here. I will try to be brief and to the point, my name is [indiscernible]. And I have 3 hats on. First, I represent my family office. We have shares in companies, participations in companies. And I am also the Chair of Corrosion Protection developer in Germany, a globally leading company. And the third one, I have an NGO in Tanzania in Africa, focusing on the economic and scientific cooperation between universities and companies from Germany and Tanzania. Now I have 3, I hope, exciting questions for you as a person knowing about Business Administration, I know that we've got 2 main leaders in order to optimize profits, either we can reduce costs and increase revenues or both. And now talking about reducing costs. Here, I would like to know whether there is a statistical analysis regarding the standstill of your operations. Here, I'm mainly talking about towers, although we already learned during the AGM that most of the towers were outsourced to subsidiaries or leased. Operations don't -- are not utilized. This means that there is no revenues coming from these assets to the company. And here, I would like to know especially what is happening if you've got corrosion in the electrical contacts for the towers, for example, especially in the neighborhood of the coasts on islands in hot climate, United States, Florida or 5G network of offshore wind energy converters, whether you've got unplanned problems with your assets, standstills of the assets? And if so, then I would like to perhaps also help the engineers and show some possible solutions how to handle such problems. The next exciting question, new markets to increase your revenues. I personally spend as much time as possible in Tanzania. Tanzania, as all the countries in Africa, if statistics are right, we will see that the population will double in the next 25 years. And this is an enormous amount of people. As an optimist, I do see huge opportunities in these markets. Perhaps not even the Asian companies see them, and we should not leave them to the Asian companies. There are huge opportunities also for European companies. The prices, in my opinion, the prices for telecommunications services are not very low. I can see what I pay for my prepaid cards there. What I also saw in Tanzania is another very interesting business model of telecommunications companies that they offer financial services. So I can have a credit on my smartphone, and I cannot only use this credit for making phone calls, but I can use it to pay in a restaurant, to pay in a car workshop, I can pay my electricity bill. So it's not a replacement of a bank account, but it's an addition. And the telecommunications service provider will earn a certain fee for each transaction. And then the question is, even if financial services in Europe are more strongly regulated, whether this might not also be a good possibility for you to generate additional business. I see the time is flying. A lot was said about the copper networks. One day, when we have full coverage of fiber, these copper lines might be obsolete. And so I came up with the following question. Is it profitable to take out the underground copper cables. Copper prices are high. There is a lack of supplies. So might it be possible in a few years that you can have extraordinary profits that will also help the share price by selling this copper. Now I wish all the participants of this AGM how exciting and constructive day, and I would like to thank you for your attention. Thank you very much.

Then the next speaker is Mr. Yazine Bosco and then we have Henrik Alexander Zonenberg. Mr. Bosco first. Mr. Yazine Bosco, are you still here? Currently, this is not the case. So now I would like to ask Mr. Henrik Alexander Zonenberg and then after him, Mr. [indiscernible] and perhaps [indiscernible] close to the stage already. But first Mr. Zonenberg please.

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for this personal invitation to this AGM. Unfortunately, this is not happening for many of the German DAX companies. So a question to Mr. Appel, why don't you have personal meeting for RWE. Statistically speaking, the mobile communications network is better in Albania than in Germany. I went there. I saw it myself. I live in Bergesglatbach, and I asked your colleagues outside why we don't have such a good connection. The person said it's probably due to the mountains and the forests, and it hopefully works in the future. Mrs. [indiscernible] in her State of the Union address in 2005 said that the communications network has to be expanded, but we are not yet well connected. And I would like to know from you when you will have a mobile connection everywhere in Germany. Based on the information by a major German newspaper, AI is the second biggest risk for small- and medium-sized enterprises at present. The largest risks are hacker attacks. How do you want to make sure that this changes in the future. The third sale of T share in Germany showed a share price of more than EUR 60. When do you think will we be back at this share price. In the past, you had a very nice advertising figure or [indiscernible] was when you were privatized. Why don't you use it any longer? And how much did you have to pay for the copyright. So it didn't even take me 2 minutes to ask my questions. I think it's good to restrict the time. I don't want to hear the CV of everybody. Have a good time, bless you and bye-bye.

Thank you very much for your very brief intervention. Let me ask again whether Mr. [indiscernible] is back in the room, is here. If this is not the case, we will now listen to Sven Huling and then to Mr. [indiscernible].

Thank you very much, Mr. Appel for giving me the floor and for listening to me. I will be brief. Well, it's a pity that Mr. Hottges is not here. I first have to tell you a secret. Well, I tried to have a nice outfit today. First of all, everything is clear. You said that if there are any problems, then we should address your employees? I did. There was something that made me very sad. You blocked my mobile phone number on the shareholders' hotline. And there was a member of staff who said that I have to talk to an AI and she blocked my number. And ever since I was not able to reach you any longer, and I'm very disappointed because as a shareholder, I have the right to call you directly, and I wanted to do this. It's a pity that Mr. Hottges is not here. I hope that he can see me, he can hear me. But now I would like to tell you a secret. I got a contract from Paramount Pictures. So I was taken on by Paramount Pictures. I have to remove my shirt and I'm extremely proud of this. Mr. Hottges got this, and I hope that you will all give him an applause. He is now part of Paramount. You can see clouds. This is not interesting any longer. You can use as much electricity as you want. First of all, Mr. [indiscernible] you answered all the questions. You don't have to ask any question to me, I have a request to you. I was in 5 shows from in all the different broadcasting stations. Also, we've done Rap, I produced RapTV and I would be happy if you gave me a Telekom t-shirt, perhaps 2 with a T on it. Mr. Hottges, you were taken on by Mercedes and now I have to wish do a break. This is also important for Deutsche Telekom. I now ask you very politely. I'm not watching the time, but this is really important. I waited for a long time. I want to do a reset with Deutsche Telekom. I've got the Mercedes share for as a gift and I had to hand it over to Paramount and then I had to do a 24-hour reset, it's called sound of the machines. So we keep it quiet for 1 day and the next day, it starts again and then you got your entire transfer. And I want to do the same thing with Deutsche Telekom. The problem, however, is I got some future shares and the future is that I am growing older with you, but that's not too bad. So if you give me one share for free, I can do a reset with you, and this means that there is an end date. Paramount and Warner Bros. How do you call it, we know they have archives. There is a 70-millimeter archive for the 70 millimeters films. There is a music archive and there is archive for logos. On the 17th of November, so there is end date, if you do not want to do the reset with me, Mr. Hottges, could you please listen to me? This is very important. There is an end date, the 17th of November 2029. So if the Mercedes boss wants to do it with me, we'll do a reset. You will give me a share. I hand it over to Paramount and then you will get your transfer. And I ask you for something very nice. I do not want to talk for too long because everything has been said already, everything is clear. I'm extremely said that you switched off my mobile phone. There was a lady on the phone and she said that I ask to talk to an AI. Now let us talk about AI. Ever since I talk to AI, AI told me that Mr. Hottges will give me an HD+ card for free or one waipu stick because I feel the media library. This is what the AI said. If you have a generous heart, I would be happy if you gave me an HD+ card, which I put into the relevant lot so that I have access to Sky and all these stations for free. And then I do not want to burden you for too long. Well, I really love you daily, but I also feel cheated by you because these are future shares. And well, you are no longer trendy here because I know about bans on smartphones and I see this in a critical light. I think this is really a pity with the ban on smartphones because it seems to be spreading. Now I've got 3 sentences, Mr. Hottges. As you are future company. I have the right. I would like to be in the quiz champion with Johannes B. Kerner when [ Buly ] is there or now the broadcasting station. I want to sit there with a Telekom T-shirt, I want to be part and then I will also be in your media library. I'm not doing it for the people. I do it for fun because I have to get away from cigarettes because we'll have a cigarette ban starting on the 1st of March. So if you have the videos on which and people are smoking, so you have to mark the videos that there is smoking. I will be finished soon Mr. Plum. I know that your customers in [indiscernible] consume baking soda. And as you have contacts to Schwarz group and looking for somebody, you don't have to give it to me for free but I'm looking for one of the baking soda. And this is your customer and then there is a Nelson Mandela Square in Bremen. This is 2 football fields large area. And your customers, our customers at some point in time will no longer be there and people -- and the influence in Bremen, and I don't like it and I would be happy if you gave a contact to [indiscernible], for example, because, yes, baking soda is very popular. It's not quality. It's not like Dr. [indiscernible], but it's just cheap product. And finally, the last sentence, and this is very important to me, there is a share, which will break some companies necks. If I have the right, if I feel that these companies are not well and please also pass the message to the boss of Mercedes. I hope that you all put your money together and give me a lind share, only if I get a lind share, I can do a reset with them as well, and then I will also transfer it to Paramount. Just very briefly. Now please come to your close. Yes, yes, I will. Mr. Hottges, could you please listen to me one more second. You interrupted me. Well, the reset is as follows. I have to be given the share for free, and then I can do the reset, and I would like to do this and the share is at risk. The chocolate will be stolen and the share price will go down. So if you want to give me a share, I will help them. I am ready. So now you've got my approval. There will be another shareholders' meeting at Mercedes. I will also be there. CO2 carbon emissions, you don't care s***, I don't care s*** no, it's about your future. And if you give me a share for free, I will help people. This is an important topic. And if you were to give me a T-shirt for the TV shows, I would be absolutely happy and also an apology for blocking my phone because otherwise, I could have called Mr. Plum about this transfer and I couldn't do so, but I did it now. Yes, I am. And I talked for 5 minutes and I hope you accept all the information. We will see each other next week in the stream and say, the best to all of. I'm ready now.

So Mr. Eisman is the next speaker on the list. So I just got a little heavier. So we have an anniversary today this is my 31st AGM and the 30th ordinary AGM. So one was extraordinary. So that was in Hanover at the time in 2009. There were actually 2 AGMs in that year, 1 ordinary and the other extraordinary. Now let's come to my questions. So for 28 years now, we've been in a competition. And the competent authorities, regulators, the Federal Network Agency forced us to actually pass through the services, Mr. [ Ricke ], CEO at the time said that the loss was EUR 280 million. Mr. Obermann confirmed this that this was a distortion of the competition. And that was then resolved. But now we have Internet telephony. And I'd be interested in one thing, whether partners are just too lazy to invest in their own networks. Now if you go into the web from Bonn and you want to access an Internet site in Berlin. This sometimes routed through Frankfurt or Hanover or Hamburg when it goes abroad, it can go through different networks. I mean this does not involve any additional costs. But if a competitor is too lazy to invest in their own networks, they can just route their calls through Deutsche Telekom. I'd be interested in whether this is really the case. These routing charges where Deutsche Telekom really has to pay for. The question is whether that's a real problem for you. That's true. Are there any means you have to stop this. And I have a question on artificial intelligence as well. There are some fears I know. But I think that Deutsche Telekom has some safeguards here. Let me give you an example for a particular reason, I asked Meta AI, whether it can change a EUR 50 bill because 40 years ago, a smart guy, but it was actually fraud, actually produced EUR 55 German mark bill. And of course, that ended up at the police. So I asked Meta's AI, whether it could change a EUR 55 -- 55 German mark bill. And the answer was, there's no problem. You can exchange your 55 German mark's bill at Deutsche Bank branches. There was also some other occasions when the AI came up with very weird responses. And so my fear was that AI is really vulnerable and the originally good idea of using AI can run into serious trouble. But based on experience, I guess, you have safeguards against such errors. As Google says that there might be errors in answers that are provided by AI, but I'm pretty confident that Deutsche Telekom has the safeguards like business cloud that include highly sensitive business data. So there are really I'm sure stringent security requirements. That's why I'm asking this question, whether that's really true. So that others who share my fear that they can be reassured that Deutsche Telekom's top priority is really security. I assume that Mr. Hottges is going to confirm this that security is their top priority. So let me just have a drink of water and then I will finish. It's important to drink enough even if you are not thirsty because otherwise, you get a little oozy. Thank you.

So last question to find out whether Mr. [indiscernible] is here. It's not the case. So we'll move on to the next round of answers. And after the round of answers, Mr. Klenke, [indiscernible] on the speaker's list. But now a round of answers, let me take a first question that Mr. Ella raised on Corporate Governance code. Today, it was confirmed that the Board of Management and Supervisory Board are in full compliance with the German corporate governance code. Does this include your suppliers? Because as far as I know, there is one supplier where this is not fully the case. Do you think that the supplier is compliant. Mr. Ella, you were mentioning the conformity statement of Deutsche Telekom and our suppliers. We are following the recommendations of the German Corporate Governance Code. On December 30 in 2025, we issued this conformity statement. We still think that we are compliant with the code because after our review, we fully comply with the requirement with the exception mentioned. So we only cooperate with suppliers that are committed to fight corruption in any form. What's crucial is that we fulfill the requirements of the corporate German government code at all levels and we make sure that none of our suppliers violates any of the principles. Now you also asked the question why RWE still organizing a virtual AGM. I mean I'm sitting here as the Chair of Deutsche Telekom's AGM. So I would be happy to answer that question when I attend RWE's AGM. Mr. Zaltan asked about our engagement with Quantum technology and cooperation with universities. Yes, when it comes to Quantum technologies, we are active and quantum communication is one of our priorities, encryption and quantum-enabled fiber network. These are the issues that we are engaged with. In 2023, we set up our own quantum lab in Berlin, and we also have a wonderful patent on quantum communication. And you can look this up on the Internet. We also cooperate with important universities when it comes to quantum technologies, the TU in Berlin and the TU in Dresden University of [indiscernible]. We also have a cooperation on quantum technology. So we are quite active there. And when it comes to encrypting networks and data, you already have to make the necessary preparations now to enable quantum technologies. This brings me to [indiscernible] question about Financial Services in Tanzania as a new business model. We are not going to move into any new territories. We're not expanding into Africa, South America or China. We're staying where we are, to the left and to the right of the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, we are reviewing what we can do more in terms of financial services. We have payzy financial service in Greece, is a very simple payment service and we're thinking about introducing something similar in other European countries. What's important to us are the Magenta advantages. In the app, maybe you're not aware of this. There is a Magenta advantage or benefits. So you will get this benefit like discounts -- you don't have to do anything else. But if you're a Magenta customer, we'll give you some benefits through the app. Well, I think I answered that on the Snow White town. You asked about the gender structure and age structure in terms of our IT staff in Telekom. IT, our internal IT service provider, 74% of the staff are male, 26% are female, age distribution, up to 30 years, 19%; from 30 to 50 years, 45%; and above 50, 36%. So that's a healthy mix, I think. Mr. Zaltan you talk about our preretirement offers. And we have 2 tools here. Partial retirement and active retirement. And this program grew from 630 that is mostly former civil servants that made use of this program. It's a total of 4,832 people who made use of this program, active retirement. The deadline for this program is December 31, 2026. Whether this will be extended is still not clear, so we cannot really make any statement on whether this program will be continued. So the federal government or the federal parliament will have to decide this. Partial retirement is the second tool in 2,086 and 2,440. So that's sum total 11,492 that have signed up for this program, partial retirement will continue to be an important tool for us to manage the transition from employment to retirement. Mr. Sonnenberg, you talked about our -- the figure of Pink Panther that we used to advertising in the '90s, Paul Panther was a highly esteemed advertising partner for Deutsche Telekom in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the Panthers fur did not match our color code. So we actually saved on some license fees that were in these 6 digits. But we're happy that Paul Panther still works as a testimonial currently for insulation material. But some of these insulation materials made of fiber optics. So here, Paul Panther can also make a contribution from his telecom past to this industry. So this is a wonderful AI answer, isn't it? But let's move on. Mr. Ella, you talked about revenue and performances when it comes to AI and blockchain and the importance of this revenue for '25 and beyond. Now for AI, we don't identify separate revenue figures, but we should change that. But AI is a firm part of our EUR 17 billion investments that we make and it cuts across all our projects. So these are just German and European but it also includes American projects. Blockchain figures are not separately identified currently. Blockchain does not have -- the kind of momentum in our company or generally in the industry, as was first believed, it's not that relevant for us. I know it has certain strengths, but it's not yet commercially viable. AI is a value driver, but it's not a separate part of our revenue. So we can't give you any figures for 2025 or any specific targets for 2030. But for all investors, later this year, we will have a small Capital Market Day, where we will provide explicit information on our AI projects and use cases, and we will also give you more information on our ethical standards. And our small private shareholders can also participate online. Then nationwide mobile services. I mean we're building more than our competitors always. I can see that in the figures, you can follow this up in the press, in the media more than 99% of the surface area of Germany now is supplied with our services and LTE 92% and 90% of the territory of Germany, 5G is available. Sorry, this is not a correct answer. I'd like to hand this back because this is not a correct answer. 92% 5G -- 99.3% that's the correct figure. So I would like to withdraw that answer. We need to work on it. We need to correct this. So let's take our time to correct this. And I will hand over to Christian now.

I have one question to deal with. Mr. Sonnenberg's question. We had EUR 60 for the third -- when we issued the shares for the third time. I can't tell you when we will go back up to EUR 60, the capital market will decide that. We are now at EUR 30. And in 2002, we were at EUR 60. And I mean, we are trading now at a ratio of 15%, which is the earnings and share price ratio. So if you project this, we are talking about smaller single-digit number of years when we should be back at 60%. But of course, the capital market will decide that at what price, our share will be traded. So that brings us to the next round of questions. Christian Wang first, then Klaus Luma, Mr. Klein and Mr. Oliver Luka. Mr. Wang, please.

I'll try to be brief. But I'll try to bring up all the questions I have. No. I mean the calculation you just gave us, that was pretax, right? Regarding the share price. But anyway, I've got 3 things that I wanted to raise here. I come from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. I'm sure that AI can do a lot, but people can do more than AI. So let me start with the topic of appreciation. And the appreciation always starts with praise. All that means is if you invite people who have done a lot for Telekom, then you do more than you think because the appreciation that you show to your employees comes back 100 times. I can assure you that. So it's a good idea to always invite honorary guests, so to speak. I would like to talk about the capital increase and the higher dividend and the share buyback. I see a connection here. If you increase the dividend and at the same time, buy back shares and increase the capital, then basically, you're doing everything twice. And -- or is that including taxes or not? I mean, why would you do it? Why would you increase capital and then buy back shares? I think that is a contradiction. I think it would be good if at the next AGM, you offered your shareholders to grant individual discharge to the members of the Board of Management instead of overall discharge to the Board. And I would like to come back to what you said about NVIDIA and SAP and other companies that you are working together with. And these are big players, just like you are. I do hope, though, that you know that working with Elon Musk may mean playing with fire. Just think of how dependent Ukraine is on Starlink. I mean, the Ukrainians will be long dead without that system. And yes, that's playing with fire. And I think you need to be cautious. Sorry, I'm a bit nervous here. Third thing I wanted to say, maybe not the last thing, is this, sports. Women, except for football, there are -- well, there are lots of other types of sports that are not quite so popular as football where Germany is active, but where women do not play such a strong role. And I am convinced that telecom -- it will be good for Telekom to act as a sponsor and not just for something like the Olympic Games. And of course, it would be nice if Telecom could help Germany get the Olympic games. But the question is, until then, what can you do to promote women's sport? For instance, Volleyball for women. In Sweden, for instance, the women's volleyball team have won all the championships since the mid-1990s, but nobody knows it. So what could you possibly do as a company to promote women's sports, maybe handball, basketball, -- there are so many options where the male version of the sport is extremely prominent, but the same doesn't hold true for the women's equivalent. I forgot to mention -- there's something I wanted to say about carbon emissions. What's your target by 2030? Do you want to be carbon neutral by 2030? Right. And regarding your ROCE goal, can you also give us a specific ROCE target to be achieved by 2030? Or would that be too far away, in the context of carbon neutrality. So do you know what your carbon return, so to speak, will be by 2030? What else? There was AI, I already talked about that. Yes, there's one last thing. People are the most important thing, not AI, and you know it. And if you praise a person, then that has a much stronger effect than criticizing people. And I think, yes, we've heard too much criticism for everyone who has come here today. So that's it from my side. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Rink. The next speaker is Klaus Luma, followed by Niels Klein. Mr. Luma.

Klaus Luma, small shareholder from Thuringia. Ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to talk about 7 items at this shareholders' meeting. First of all, are there any news about sports sponsoring? I want to refer to the last time I asked a question about this. Secondly, the British Telecom Group, are there any plans to increase your stake? Is Deutsche Telekom represented on its Supervisory Board? Thirdly, the fixed network telephone booths. Is there a strategy for that? I think it no longer works. Number four, satellites of Deutsche Telekom AG. Is a big player from the Netherlands involved here? Then the T-Labs in Berlin, that's #5. That was great news. Number six, the T-Cloud and sovereignty. I think that German SMEs are not aware of these products. Maybe you could advertise them more. Number seven, I believe that an AI factory in London, United Kingdom, would make a lot of sense. Maybe not next year, could also be sometime in the future. Number eight, would it be possible to use AI to protect sensitive information and software systems?

Thank you very much, Mr. Luma, for these very precise questions. The next speaker is Niels Klein, followed by Oliver Lukamp. So the next speaker is Nies Klein.

Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, my name is Niels Klein, and I am here as a municipal politician from the city of Bonn here today. Now Telekom with more than 70,000 employees is still a big player on the German labor market. However, this goes hand-in-hand with a big responsibility. In his speech, Mr. Hottges committed himself to Germany as a place to do business. Now does that mean that you feel also just as committed to your employees? And with a view to the upcoming wage talks, we've heard that jobs have to be transferred abroad unless the overall framework conditions in Germany improve. This could be interpreted as a threat. My question is this. Will the decisions that are being taken in Berlin ultimately go at the expense of your employees? The next question is, how can you safeguard digital sovereignty given the current geopolitical situation? And how would that even be possible if you keep on shifting jobs to, say, India? And I would also like to remind you of St. Petersburg, where teams were working on critical infrastructure before the war. But then after the war had started, they had to leave the country overnight.

Thank you very much, Mr. Klein. The next speaker is Mr. Lukamp. Barbara Grimberg is the next speaker. Are you here? We brought you forward because Mr. Lukamp wasn't available yet.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Barbara Grimberg. I studied economic science, and I actually took my PhD there. Some of the answers given by Mr. Hottges do not quite make a lot of sense. He said that shareholders should say what they think and then Telekom would do that. Well, unfortunately, that's not true because I have requested a printed annual report several times, and it still isn't available. On the other hand, Mr. Hottges said that there's too much auditing, too much testing, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, there is one. Oh, there is a printed report. Okay. Okay. So I withdraw this very criticism. Thank you very much for that. But let me continue. I've got more negative things to mention. On the one hand, you're saying that you want women to be role models and that you want to have more women in managerial positions, et cetera. And I applied, I think, in 2002, 2003 for a post on the Supervisory Board for the first time. And nobody ever even talked to me about it. And I think it's questionable in the context of AI that you are using AI systems to answer questions. So can I ask the AI system to let me know why nobody ever contacted me about my applications, even though I do qualify for the job and despite my commitment. You said that you have to be committed, you have to be motivated, you have to be skilled. I offer all that, but still, I haven't heard from you at all. And then Mr. Hottges also introduced himself by way of a video. I didn't quite like that. Why is it that he wasn't able to attend today's meeting in person? What's more? I think it is quite cheeky that the salary of the Board members increases from EUR 100,000 to EUR 115,000. That's an 11% rise. And your employees have to fight for a 4% or 6% rise, even though you keep on saying that they are the real pros here. And then the shareholders. The shareholders only have a once-in-a-year opportunity to discuss things with you as part of a dialogue. And 4 hours is not a long time. So there is a lack of transparency. While you said that you want to improve transparency and that you're already making things very transparent, that is not really the case when you look at it. You mentioned the number of households connected to the fiber network. How many contracts, however, have been concluded with the customers for our fiber line? And over the past 4 years, I haven't had -- I lost my telephone connection for a couple of weeks, and nobody was able to sort things out before, well, they figured out it must have been a problem, a technical problem. Well, then there is Mr. [indiscernible], a new Supervisory Board member, and he does speak German because he is German, but he lives in Seattle. So I wonder that is very far away from here. Will he be paid a second flat? Yes. And then you talked about rejuvenating the Supervisory Board. Well, you could have done that 24 years ago when I applied for the job. Then we have the female member of the Supervisory Board, Mrs. [indiscernible]. She's not here today. Why? Is she already on Easter holiday with her kids? And then I discovered today that in the city of Bochum in a tram, there was some advertising on the fiber rollout. And then we have the same with the beer mat that you distributed here. So how much did all this advertising cost to print it? And then you showed us that trailer of the data center in Munich, where we saw that the ventilators were extremely noisy, 115 decibels. So how much money are you spending on cooling? So you're using electricity for your computing power, but apparently, you're also using it to cool all these systems. How many staff do you have in this data center? And how do you protect their hearing? Then you said that you want to discontinue or basically switch off copper lines by 2030. Is that still the plan? And then you talked about digital twins and testing things in a digital fashion. Well, that's nothing new. That actually started roughly 20 years ago when the Internet was launched. Back then, it was referred to as a mockup kind of simulation. What classical data centers do you have? And what services do you offer with these data centers? And then you mentioned your data center in Munich, and you said that cooling is ascertained through the ice pack and ice cream. But how is that possible during summer? Then you talked about the use of satellites in the future. how many of these satellites will you own in future? And in the same context of satellites, I am surprised that you are not even talking to German satellite manufacturers. For instance, OHB, they are based in Bremen. They are building satellites both for their own company and also on behalf of others, for instance, for Airbus. And then you did not even mention the Rocket Factory, which is also based in Bavaria, I think Augsburg or Nuremberg. And they are also building ramps for the rockets for their own purposes. And they also work together with leading manufacturers from the U.K., from Wales and Scotland. And how about Kongsberg? They are also very active in this field. Then on the other hand, you restricted speaking time. That's always when I sign up. That's when you keep on cutting speaking time short. And I don't think that's a very nice thing to do. Then we've heard that you were paid EUR 11.2 million as the CEO. So that's roughly EUR 1 million salary per month. I think that's a bit much. Then the Supervisory Board said, okay, well, that was a self-assessment, and he thinks that this salary is adequate. And then, I mean, if you consider that 30% of the Telekom shares are still held by the government, you are actually a civil servant. You are paid the same salary as a Minister and State Secretary. But ultimately, your activity is worth 5x what a comparable Minister would be paid. Then I would like to thank you for the good lunch that we've been offered here today. Next topic is, to what extent are you using Indian services for IT, programming, et cetera? Next question is mobile coverage -- no, sorry, coverage of the fiber rollout in the city of Bochum. Are you going to switch off the copper network there? I hope not. Why did you not follow the proposals that I have made since 2002 regarding a salary reform. After all, Deutsche Telekom used to be part of Deutsche Post because before these 2 companies were separated. And back then, new structures for remuneration were introduced as well. This should be based on certain factors such as pension insurance, then unemployment benefit, then the health insurance that was EUR 8,000, EUR 8,000 and EUR 6,000 roughly, respectively. And that would cover pretty much everything. And then you can also pay a fixed salary of EUR 1 million or so plus a fee because considering all the things you do, you should bear in mind that it's all about making profit so that you can then reinvest part of that profit. And I've been saying this for 20 years, then maybe you could use 1/4 of the profit for dividends for the shareholders, another 1/4 for the wages and salaries as a bonus, but for everyone, top down, then the next quarter for repairs and research and the last quarter to cover any possible risks because bear in mind, you keep on talking about your responsibility, but a performance bonus of EUR 1 million, that's about the same salary that is paid to 17 skilled labor. And you always talk about your responsibility, but others bear even more responsibility. A bus driver is paid EUR 3,400 gross a month and then drives a bus and -- or take a train driver. And then they transport, I don't know, millions of people, maybe hundreds of people on any given day. So that certainly is more responsibility than the responsibility you bear.

And sorry, you've spoken for about 12 minutes. So can you please come to an end here?

Yes. Well, I'm aware that I've been speaking for 12 minutes, and I appreciate it. But please tell me when will you finally dismantle the old telephone booths that are still out there? And I am going to submit another application to you because I am qualified. And it would be nice if you could then contact me. I would now like to thank you for granting me more time to speak, for organizing this AGM as a physical meeting, for the good meals and for the printed version of the annual report. Thank you. So I hope you'll consider my proposal. Ultimately, I think it's important that we safeguard Germany as a place to do business because a lot of companies are leaving this company. Why is that? Because salaries are too high and they can produce more cost effectively abroad. And the bonuses and the salaries paid to the Board members are also such a cost factor.

Thank you, Dr. Grimberg. Then I wanted to ask if Oliver Lukamp is still there. If he is, then he has the floor.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. I was a little bit surprised that it came up so quickly. Just I only need 2 or 3 minutes. In the last few years, I've also briefly spoken and complained slightly about the flow of information when you apply for something online. But in the last few years, there's been -- I've only had positive experiences. That's why I'd like to praise you for that. But I have a question about the fiber build-out. And I wish you would not have so many paper brochures just for environmental reasons going forward. And my question though is relates to the city of Bochum and Glasfaser GmbH is cooperating with Telekom there for the build-out. And in the next 7 years, it's going to be completely covered with fiber without citizens having to take out or sign a contract with Telekom. But I have a question in that regard. There are several properties there in Bochum where they have a multifamily residential building. And then also, there's single-family houses in the same area. How are you planning in this city in Bochum or other similar cities to approach that. Do you think it would be possible to have a longer cable passing through a property where you could hook up other houses as well that are -- because it would be great if Bochum was completely covered with fiber. But on these larger premises, there are certain -- sometimes buildings that can't be covered. And then the last question is, I heard years ago that telecommunication providers, they offer fiber to the home to every individual dwelling. What are you planning to do? Because with cable, you can lead cables into the house and through the staircase. Is it really important to connect every dwelling where you're building out fiber? Or what's your priority there? How does it look with regard to connection of each and every single dwelling?

Yes. I was going to propose that we have a break. But first, we'll take some more questions. [ Matthias Muth ], Thomas Kirchner and then Thomas Loninger also wanted to ask a question. But first of all, [ Matthias Muth ] is he there? If not, then I would ask Thomas Kirchner to step up. And Matthias Muth can -- if he's here, get ready and then to be followed up by Thomas Loninger. But first, yes.

Hello, everybody. My name is Thomas Kirchner. I'm a shareholder of DTAG. And I've been listening to what's been said by Mr. Hottges today. And it made me reflect a little bit. And in his opening presentation, he told about his vision and stressed the fact that there's a lot of responsibility and that diversity and freedom of opinion and speech and he stressed that these values are very important for him and the company. And -- but in answering the questions, he usually answered that they -- and Deutsche Telekom make sure that they just stick to the law in Germany and T-Mobile U.S. that they also make sure that they just comply with laws and regulations. And the question that I would like to raise as a shareholder and citizen is does the sharehold of DTAG in T-Mobile U.S. and the huge -- considering the huge contribution that T-Mobile makes to DTAG's balance sheet. Are you negatively -- or am I as a shareholder by -- as a shareholder, negatively impacted by world events. I hear that we're making a profit, and I understand that you want to maximize profit within the legal realm. And of course, that's your good right and as a company. But as a shareholder, my problem with that is that I get a dividend for that profit. But at the same time, the world is becoming more -- yes, uncertain and insecure. Sorry about my voice and that's why I asked the question I have right away. Do you have the shareholders' structure in mind and individual shareholders, is it important to you how individuals support your company? And what would you say to somebody like me? Or how would you convince me and try to allay my concerns and fears about the company. The company aim and objective of -- sorry, I hope you understand roughly what I mean. I'm just -- I can't carry on.

Thank you, Mr. Kirchner, for your statement and question. Let me ask again, is [ Matthias Muth ] here in the auditorium? If not, then Thomas Loninger has a follow-up question.

Thank you. I'll keep it short, but I would ask you to answer my question because it wasn't answered yet. What is the revenue for the business in 2025 because there's people at Telekom that are called peering managers and there's transit agreements. And it said that a profit center is also associated with this. So my question relates to the total revenue that was achieved best of all split up or rather broken down. And also, you said it was groundless what I said. But when I said that your speech is we're showing it on our website. And you talked about a court and a litigation going on, Metor gave notice on a service and you had to keep paying for it, but network neutrality is not even addressed in this ruling, court ruling. And that was the argumentation that we forwarded because the customer has incurred damage. And that leads to my second question, you talked about ratio. There has to be a proper ratio, but customers aren't interested in this. When you buy Internet services, you have to be able to rely on getting the whole Internet package. And I'd be interested in hearing whether this is -- is the official recommendation to have a VPN to have the different options that would guarantee network neutrality for the customer. And I won't go into open Internet details here. But I think it's pretty interesting to look at what's happening in interconnection market right now and also that's exaggerated network neutrality in 5G. And trying to understand this, you said the technical characteristics should allow a distinction to be made. And that's what the Internet neutrality regulation is all about. What would you say, especially regarding specific products that Telekom is planning to put on the market because we've been having this debate since 2025 since the Commissioner Oettinger triggered in Europe. And I think it would be good to put this on an objective footing because the majority of countries in the world don't have network neutrality laws. So maybe they exist. But in the U.S. where telecom operates, at the federal level, they don't have network neutrality. Donald Trump abolished it. And when you say we have to abolish it in Europe to make possible 5G innovation, why don't we have these fantastic new products then. So I hope you'll give me the revenue figures for the last business year.

Okay. If [ Matthias Muth ] isn't here after all, I can't see him anywhere, then we can strike him from the list of speakers. Then we've heard all the speakers now. And before we respond to them, I would like to note that after the end of the general debate, we'll go to the voting. And after that, we'll talk about the proxies and the voting rights and give you notes on the voting and also ballots that were already cast by mail. And it's required that we provide these notes regarding these voting procedures. So this brings me to a question from Mr. Rink. Mr. Rink, you asked whether it's possible next year to not discharge the entire Management Board, but to do it individually. Well, we look at these proposals each year, and it depends on practice in our branch. And that's why in the 12 months, we'll look at that again, but I can't promise you that we'll do individual discharge instead of a collective discharge of the work of the Management Board. That was the first question of Mr. Rink. And the second question, Dr. Grimberg had 5 questions. Let's start with the question about -- you wanted to know with regard to AI, why we didn't contact you regarding advertising because you have the qualification for this. Ms. Grimberg, we have certain criteria, and we go through these criteria, also with external consultants and these criteria that we have, you are never on our list. I just have to be honest about that. I have to admit that in all honesty. And that's why we didn't contact you because you weren't on our list. And that's our responsibility on the Supervisory Board to proceed as we do. And then doctor, this was asked by Dr. Herzig. No, this was a question about Dr. Herzig, why he isn't here. And you have to respect that there's people who have other responsibilities as well and changing these short term isn't always easy. And if -- if he's not there next year, then we would listen more closely to your criticism. But because we have to accept that not everybody can make it to this event. And then you asked whether [indiscernible] had a second residence in Hamburg and whether it's paid for. Whether he has a second apartment in Bonn that's paid for. And the answer is no. Dr. Grim, I can't judge what personal reasons are and what aren't. And -- we're all happy if we're not affected by personal reasons and he's not on holiday, and that's why I'd ask you not to report about these. She's not on holiday, and that's why I'd ask you not to report on these personal reasons in any detail. And also the remuneration of the Management Board. We believe that the way we proceed with the remuneration of the management and how we determine this is right, and that's why we'll continue to do it the way we do. And that was the question you had for me. And with that, I'll give the floor to Mr. Hottges.

It might be important to add that most of the remuneration for the Executive staff and Board of Management is pegged to the performance of the share price development. And there is a fixed component, but most of the remuneration is pegged to the share price. And when that develops positively, then that has a positive impact on the remuneration. This brings me to the topic. I'll start with [indiscernible]. You talked about after fiber is completely built out and we remove the copper, what we can do. There's 2 different processes for laying cable underground or then it's in a hollow pipe underground. And then there's a cable. And this cable and this empty pipe can be pulled out of it, and it can be reused, recycled or whatever or sold. And -- but with the cables that are just put underground with a sheath, with the casing around them, they can't be removed from the earth. So there is no possible to remove them and then to reuse them or sell them. So at some point, we will switch off the copper network, and then we won't have any energy cost to operate it. But we have to build out fiber everywhere though before that. And fixed network and investment in our own network and interconnection fees since 2021, these have been determined by the European Commission with maximum rates. And these might be even lower than our actual costs, but they are -- have only a very minor importance. I know this -- we've been concerned with this topic for a certain time. We negotiate the most important interconnection fees with our customers and customers pay -- and competition, our competitors pay to continue to use our lines like Vodafone, O2, et cetera, and they resell them their services, and we make sure that we are able to cover our costs. [indiscernible] also asked about technical risks, especially if radio systems are switched off. First of all, the systems are continuously monitored, automatic monitoring. And if there are any disturbances, automatic resets will be made so that the sites will be booted up again. This is how we reduce economic losses. And one of the reasons why the Deutsche Telekom gets so many awards, and it's better than the peers is that we've got a high stability and quality and that we do not have so many voice interruptions. So the systems are not standing still very often, not when there are geopolitical problems, but we are more concerned about hacker attacks and natural disasters. And here, we have to be well prepared to mobilize the systems again very quickly and to do repairs. The environment and nature are also taken into account, and this is also necessary if you set up a new mobile site where you set up such a tower. Just think of coasts, of floods, of land slides. There are extremely high safety rules, but also other interests we take into account when we build new sites, and this is an important element of nationwide provision of services. Then there was a question concerning our CO2, our carbon emissions balance. What is not clear to everybody is that there are 3 scopes: Scope 1 and 2 and Scope 3. Scopes 1 and 2, this is what we need in terms of energies in our own operations, and we could reduce this by 94%. And this is almost carbon neutral now, but the much larger share is Scope 3, but we cannot directly influence Scope 3. Scope 3, ladies and gentlemen, is, for example, you. If you recharge your mobile phones, even if they are full or if they permanently use electricity, this will produce carbon emissions. And it is our aspiration, of course, that we also reduce our carbon emissions in Scope 3. And we want to reduce these emissions by 55% by the year 2030. And this means all our suppliers who build routers, who build antenna will need CO2 energy. And this should be reduced by helping them by providing them the opportunity to use green electricity. Our customers, private and business customers need electricity. The end device manufacturers need electricity, and this needs to be reduced in a partnership. We have a partnership for emission reductions. We want to motivate people, and we want to save 55% of CO2 emissions by 2030. I hope that I could make myself clear. 5G is a question that I previously said was wrongly answered. We now have a 5G, full 5G coverage in Germany of 99.2% or 99.3% of the population. So where people are living, you have 5G, and there is also 5G stand-alone, but this is only a technical test. If you look at the area, we supply roughly 99% of the area with mobile connection, but this is not all 5G. The pure 5G provision is 90% currently. And this means that we cannot provide connections in all natural protection areas, conservation areas. For 5G, we need more towers because they have to be much closer together than for 2G. So you can still make a phone call, but you cannot use your data simply because we cannot build our towers everywhere. 30% of Germany are covered with forests. 6% of the countries covered with nature areas. And in those areas, it's difficult for us to build towers. Mr. Luna, you talked about possible news for cycling sponsoring. No, cycling sponsoring is not part of our aspirations. Our sponsoring clearly focuses on soccer and on basketball, we will not come back to cycling even if it's now a popular sports again. Mr. Luna, you talked about our strategies for public phone booth. We no longer have coin-operated public phone booth. This operation was stopped in 2023. The 12,000 existing sites are now dismantled step by step. In the past, the municipalities never wanted us to dismantle them. Now it can't be quick enough. But if you do it, I have to point out, you also have to do civil engineering. We have to take out everything that there is. You cannot just cut the electricity and leave it in the ground. This all needs to be discussed with the municipality, and this is a big effort, also a financial challenge. We are doing it step by step, but these are 12,000 existing sites, which need to be dismantled and rebuilt. We are interested in doing it soon, but we can't do it overnight. And you said that -- you talked about the situation of our employees. Yes, we commit ourselves to Germany, and we also want to have employment in Germany. We invest much more in Germany than in many other countries. We invest into fiber and 5G. And yes, here, we still have bundled a lot of tasks for the group. But I also am honest and say we cannot afford this in the long run if this site is not productive. And if it's too expensive, then we have to think about alternatives. This is in the interest of the shareholders, but we also have to do this in order to ensure sustainability. And yes, we can pay high wages. But at the end of the day, they must be worthwhile for the group. Otherwise, we wouldn't do our job properly. And this is what we also have to take into account political conditions and civil wage costs, but also the normal wages. We have to compare this to other countries and take the necessary entrepreneurial decisions. This is a problem because Germany is no longer as productive as in the past, and we have very high wage and salary costs. This brings me to the harmonization of digital sovereignty and the use of our strength and the comparison with the site in India. Our international site in India, for example, there, we've got people who wear magenta clothes with a T on their shirt, and they feel that they are part of Telekom. And we have the same responsibility for them and their families as we have for our employees here in Germany. They ask just the same members of our Telekom family, and they complement our teams here in Germany, and they carry out joint tasks. It's not an isolated job, but they are included in the German value creation. So we will never shift or transfer total processes but partial processes. For example, software coding. Here, India is an important and interesting site for us. And it also made us much more agile and stronger in the past few years. And this is why it's also given us more sovereignty when we use employees worldwide. We do not delegate our value creation, but we strengthen it. Mrs. Grimberg, talked about the satellites. We are not operating satellites ourselves. We don't want to do this, but we focus on our terrestrial use of fiber and mobile communications. For satellites, we are using partners, and there is no exclusivity. When we choose partners for satellites, we are interested in using several partners. Turning back to device services, that go directly to your mobile phone, such as the one from Starlink are contractually agreed, and we want to offer this with a good quality, the pricing strategy, how we sell them to our customers, we have not taken the decision yet because the service is not yet available. In the U.S., it's free of charge in the high -- in the premium rates. And in the smaller bundles, you have to pay an extra premium for this service. And we are also involved in Iris2, the European satellite concept, but I have to say this is laying behind a little bit because the missile starts and the individual starts and landings are also influenced by Starlink. Then you are talking about the political situation of T-Mobile U.S. and the differences with Germany. Yes, in Germany, we are not making any donations to political parties or similar organizations. We are not allowed to do this. Donations to political parties or officers is forbidden here in the United States. The support of political representatives is more usual than in Germany, and it's part of good corporate citizenship if you do this. We make sure that we do not just support one party or we prefer one party, and we are not donating money to the parties directly, but to nonprofit organizations that pass on the money, but this is something that is just part of the deal in the United States. Barbara Grimberg, So talking about the future use of satellites, our own satellite capacities, I already answered this question. Then Mrs. Grimberg was also asking about the cooling of our data center in Munich. Our ice pack is really spectacular today. There are many questions about it. And what is happening if you have many warm days in summer. The amount of water taken out is so little that even with low tight, the amount of water would be sufficient to cool our AI factory or our cloud factory. So this is not a problem. And to repeat it, we are not heating up the river because the waste heat is used for district heating and for waste heating. Then you were talking about the risk of hacker attacks. This is a huge topic, and it's also a huge opportunity for this company at the same time because we are protecting the services and the networks for our customers in our group-wide security concept around the clock. We are monitoring the networks with a major security operations center here in Bonn. We analyze the software that attacks the ransomware that threatens our customers, and we cooperate with international security centers in order to use the knowledge in the world. Many customers are prepared to spend money for this because they are afraid, of course, that critical company information is stolen. And we've got the Magenta security portfolio for small- and medium-sized enterprises. This is a solution that protects devices, provides cyber protection, for example, safety services. So we expanded this business quite strongly. And at this point, I would like to refer you back to our website. You can take a look here at our offering. I think we are leading in our segment in this area. And we are developing solutions that use AI, GPTs and agent models for these services. Mr. Lukamp, you want to know what we do when we connect multifamily homes with fiber. Yes, of course, we want to do this. Just think about it. If you ask for a technician to repair your washing machine today, you first have to pay EUR 70 or EUR 80 for the technician to come to your home. And if you do this for each apartment, for each flat, without even talking about the real work cost, you can imagine how much more expensive it is when we go to the house several times. So it simply makes sense if you are in the building once that we connect all the flats, not only to the basement, but to the individual flats. And in the future, we will do this in one step, all the flats will be supplied to not only the people who have rates for this already, who have subscribed already. And it would help not to have too many regulations if you've got a meeting of the owners of the own flats and you missed it, then you have to wait for another year before you are allowed to go there again. So this is not how it can work. We want to have a simplified process here. You are asking about the transfer of employees based on expensive collective bargaining agreement. In the past, we always managed to find good solutions for the employees, and this is also one of the big transformation services that we provide, especially Birgit Bohle and her team are doing excellent work here. We also have a social partner with whom we always found a solution in the past, and this also shows the good cooperation that we have in the company. In the collective bargaining round 2027, we will also find a good compromise that appreciates the performance of the employees and makes it possible to participate in the success. I would like to involve and have the employees participate even more in terms of shares or variable remuneration, but you need the support of employee representatives here. And I have to point out that we have enormous competition here in Germany that we have huge investments and that we have to protect jobs long term. So all in all, it should not be too expensive for us. And here, I would like to appeal to the social partners here in the company. We have to strike the right balance because only then will we be able to protect jobs here in Germany. Dr. Grimberg. You asked when the phone boxes are switched off. This is so exciting that I'm reading it out twice. Okay. Mr. Eichmann, you asked in how far we can also support women sports more strongly. Deutsche Telekom as one of the first ones is already committed to female sports, and we continue to do this. I already told you that we are also have the rights for the soccer championship 2027 for females, and we support a lot of female sports. We are the official partner of the German Football Association. We support the German national team. The T is always in there, just watch out in the next match. And we also are the main sponsor of the Cologne Women's Football Club. So if the men will do it, we will push at least the women. Please don't publish it in the minutes. I am a fan of Bavaria Munich. So I have to say this. Otherwise, Uli Hoene will be insulted. So we are supporting them. We are supporting the Paralympics, the special Olympics, and this is also true for females. And as Deutsche Telekom, with our initiative equal eSports, we also want to focus on equal rights of men, women and diverse people for gaming sports and eSports, and this is especially of relevance to young people. Then you -- there was a question regarding a new AI factory next to Munich in London, for example. At present, we are clearly focusing on Germany. Our AI factory in Munich is on German soil because we want to have German quality made in Germany. And there are no plans to do anything in non-German sites. In the context of the EU Gigafactory initiative, the EU plans at least 5 sites with 100,000 graphic processes. We are using 10,000 in order to provide high-performing computing services to Europe. We will accompany this initiative and take our investment decision to step out of Germany. We are first focusing on Germany, but we've got more than 300 megawatts of data centers in Germany, not the GPU and we also have European sites. London is not in there, and London is also a very expensive site. [indiscernible] you also asked about the vulnerability of critical systems based on AI. Yes, it's true. You never have 100% security and AI as everything in life is a gift and is a poison and poisons always depends on the dosage. We always have to take into account the negative sites as well and attacks on our software will, of course, increase with a higher use of AI. This is true for the time before AI and for our future. And this is why we now have to invest into the protection of our entire infrastructure. And against this background, this is one of the biggest tasks where we have to invest money because this will not happen on its own. Mrs. Grimberg, you asked about the classical services in our data centers. We operate certified data centers in Germany and in Europe, providing cloud and IT services. All the services meet the requirements of data sovereignty based on GDPR. And with the industrial-based iCloud, we've got the Twin core data centers in [indiscernible] and another data center close to Amsterdam, where the T-cloud public, the sovereign cloud is operated. Typical services are IT services for private and hybrid cloud, data protection, virtual jobs, SAP, IoT services and the hosting of security solutions. Mrs. Grimberg. You asked about the fiber contracts that were subscribed. Now we've got more than 2 million of our customers subscribing to fiber connection. And you are also talking about the hearing protection in our sites. Hearing protection is very important, and we place a high importance on occupational safety and health. We, of course, have hearing protection in these loud environment. Details on the number of people working there is part of the safety and security critical site information, and we are not allowed to make any public announcements. [indiscernible] you further asked whether it's true that our copper network and the classical telephone DSL net will be shut off by December 2030. The answer is well known. No, Klaus. You referred to the TC cloud for small and medium-sized businesses. Well, of course, I mean, we are small compared to some big U.S. corporations. And I would have wished for the company to be bigger in this respect. But I cannot discuss all the background details. But we have comprehensive marketing plans for this in the second half of the year. There will be a campaign. So stay tuned for what's coming, T security and cloud. I mean, we are well represented in all the expert groups. Mr. Kirchner, you mentioned the shareholder structure and the role of private shareholders. we manage Deutsche Telekom in such a way that the Telecom share will remain attractive for all kinds of shareholders, no matter how many shares they own. We inform all groups of shareholders, institutional investors, company shareholders. At the same time, they all enjoy the same rights of information. Christian Illek, Hannes Wittig and his team, they regularly win awards for this. I think, Christian, you've recently won another CFO of the Year award. We're the only German stock corporation that offers its private shareholders a call every quarter where they can receive information that also institutional investors get. I participate in these events, and I'm available for questions, for your questions as well. Just go to our website, you will find this event there, and everybody can really get involved in this and get the latest information on strategy and also recent developments. This is a unique thing that we offer. Mrs. Grimberg, you asked about our power consumption and the breakdown. The data center is designed for a 12-megawatt consumption. And the AI center has a P value of 1.2 and a PEU of 1.2. 85% of the power goes to the IT systems and 15% goes for cooling, power distribution and other infrastructure. We optimize this distribution continuously using AI systems for optimal cooling in order to maximize the share that goes into the computing part. So most of the power that we use for our industrial AI cloud goes into computing operations and is not used for cooling. Brings me to the question about satellite activities. Mr. Luma asked this question about possible equity investments in companies like Airbus, Airbus Defense and Space. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board is our old CEO, Obermann. So we have a project called 6G takeoff, which was -- has been subsidized by the federal government and has a life of 3 years. We don't operate any satellites of our own, but we use partnerships to do that. Ms. Grimberg, you asked about the use of Indian services like writing code, for example. We use Pune, Bangalore and Gurgaon. These are our Indian locations. They are an integrated part of our organization along with the units in Germany. Colleagues work on software development and optimization for customers in the entire group. with the exception of the United States. Mr. Lukamp, you asked about connecting buildings in the back of other buildings. Unfortunately, we often don't see them in the land registers. So we don't have really good documentation on some of these buildings. That's why we have developed our own land register. Through the copper network, you can identify whether there are any buildings built behind front buildings, so second-line buildings. I can't give you any information, specific information on what the situation is in the city of Bochum, but we build fiber into buildings and into apartments. And since we're building new lines, we don't have some of the problems that others have. So I think we need to clarify this offline. Mr. Loninger, you asked about our attitude regarding network neutrality in terms of 5G. 5G allows new features, performance features like very short latencies, virtual performances, one infrastructure, interconnecting networks on the Internet of Things, high data rates. And let me give you a specific example. In the U.S., we sell a product called TPriority. The police they use this product. Whenever it has a channel, it has priority in the network. So ambulances, police cars can use this service much faster than others and at a high-quality level. So other bandwidth, if necessary, are reduced so that the police can go first. I think this makes sense, this service. And it's something that we cannot easily introduce in Germany. So we are using the technological opportunities of 5G very consistently in the U.S. And I think we need to maintain this flexibility also for our flexibility here in Europe and in Germany. But this, I think, is too detailed and too technical for the AGM. Maybe we could have this discussion somewhere else, the discussion on network neutrality. So we should offer this service first and then look afterwards whether something has gone wrong rather than explaining before anything happens, what you need to regulate and then just use this buzzword of network neutrality because this is too restrictive. We should turn it around. So I think this concludes my list of questions. I have 2 -- there are 2 more questions that are in progress. Now I have a question from Mr. Rink, who asked us what the return on capital target for 2030 is. We haven't issued -- we haven't published any. We have one for 2027, 9% that I mentioned before. But you can assume that we assume rising amounts. So return on capital is probably going to go up. It's not going to skyrocket, but it should be above the 9%. We haven't communicated anything officially yet. Second question from Mr. Luna. He asked whether there are any plans to raise our equity investment in IT DBT. We have a stake of 12%, which is in our pension fund right now and benefit from the dividend payout twice a year. There are no plans to expand that share -- that stake. One represent of the Deutsche Telekom is in the Supervisory Board of BT. Another question by Mr. [indiscernible]. If you raise a dividend and buy back shares and increase capital, then this doesn't go together, right? Yes, if you do all of this simultaneously that doesn't make any sense. But we just won the vote under Item 8 in case we do a capital increase. We've done this before. And then -- we acquired SoftBank shares for T-Mobile. It doesn't make sense to buy back shares and at the same time do a capital increase. You're right about that. It will only happen if it's separated in time. So in 1 year, you do a capital increase and in another year, you do a share buyback. Of course, this needs to be managed carefully. So what is the impact on -- of carbon neutrality on your capital -- return on capital targets? We are not measuring this because the impact might be too small. So return on capital, we measure this after tax, so EUR 19 billion, that's our EBIT and we have EUR 255 billion net assets and the carbon reduction makes up maybe EUR 100 million to EUR 200 million. So it doesn't really fit in the context of these major figures, billions. Now we printed 2,500 of these [indiscernible] and how much did this cost? EUR 318.50. And now a question which basically stressed out the back-office staff a little bit, Mr. [indiscernible] asked question of how high the peering and transit revenue was in '25? In Germany and all European companies, it was at about EUR 100 million, but we cannot break this down to companies -- national companies. Ms. [indiscernible] also asked about the 5G products. We have 5G gaming, mobile cloud games with different latencies. We have campus networks for electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles that operate in factories, outside factories. We have video production where you need high bandwidth for interviews, for example, we've got Apple watches and the RedCap standard that we offer. All of these offers require certain network parameters where, of course, you can upset about this from a network neutrality perspective, but against the backdrop of the customer interest and customer benefit this is important key priority. I mentioned that for first responders and fixed wireless access, so the use of mobile services that you use at home, if you have your router connected via mobile, you need different parameters. There, you also need to have a chance to differentiate your services. And now this brings me to the 6G network. We are currently developing 6G. If, again, we impose ourselves certain barriers like sensing and other vectors like AI functionalities. If we limit ourselves right from the start, then the innovation strength of our country is severely curtailed, and we will lag behind even more behind the Americans. Mr. [indiscernible], you also asked whether we issue the official recommendation to use a VPN to our customers. Now I was personally really annoyed by this question because you personally know we had an employee in a tweet. She simply wanted to help somebody because somebody complained along the lines that you also mentioned, and she tried to help this customer and told him that you can use a VPN. Now I mean you just put her on the spot here, you basically humiliated her by using this example just because she gave a wrong answer. I don't think it's right to do that. Because our service staff, they respond to hundreds and thousands of questions and according to our slogan that you can depend on telecom. And of course, mistakes happen and simply to pick this out and blow this up so much, I think, should not be done. Of course, every individual provider takes its own decisions. It's not us. We believe in direct interconnection and we also believe in flexible and open Internet for everybody. This was an individual mistake that I don't want to keep commenting on. I think I answered all the questions. Thank you very much.

Can I assume that all questions posed by shareholders today have been answered. If not, please pose your question once again.

Last year, I was positively surprised because you stated how much money you had paid for the due diligence insurance, which doesn't exist in other countries. But unlike last year, you did not specify the same amount this year, nor did you tell us how many people participated in this, and how much damages had to be paid by the insurance companies. What's the relevant amount here? It would be nice if you could specify that. And if the numerous back office staff are not able to answer this question at short notice now, then I would appreciate it if you could e-mail me your answer, you do have my e-mail address.

Just an objection to the minutes. I did not specify any individuals. I was referring to several statements made by telecom through Telecom [indiscernible] and on Twitter, et cetera. You just mentioned a female employee that I did not mention. Mr. [indiscernible], this was an individual case. There was a tweet and the employee then gave the answer that it would be possible to use a VPN. And then somebody fed back to her that telecom was making a fool of themselves. Well, for many years, that was precisely the recommendation given by telecom staff. You're saying it's an individual case. I am saying that this has -- that this happened continuously. So that wasn't a question. Thank you. But there is another comment.

Just briefly. I did ask a question about AI. Just to be sure and I mentioned this 55 Deutschmark bank notes. And I also said that the Google AI is saying that there may be an error and I figured there are probably loads of people who are afraid that the same errors may occur with the AI systems used by telecom. But I'm assuming that this will be stopped and that those who are afraid can be reassured that you'll be dealing with it.

Was this a question or a comment?

Well, just because my question has not been answered, but this is not an additional question.

Well, let me reiterate what I have said in another context before. Obviously, we are using AI to answer questions, but there's always a person that plausibilizes the answer so that you wouldn't actually see a 55 Deutsche Mark banknote.

Yes. I just wanted to make sure that we pass this on to whom it may concern.

Look, you don't have to be afraid of Deutsche Telekom's AI systems. They make sure that there is no misuse and no errors. It should be a good thing for everybody involved. That's just what I meant to say. Right?

There is another follow-up question.

I'm sorry. I would like to get back to the Google-related question, which has not been answered. Is there an alternative to this web client and secondly, has any money paid either from telecom to Google or the other way around or nothing at all? And then sorry, there's one question that I forgot to mention, but I'll be quick. Creative occupations like authors, speakers, cameramen, et cetera, people working in media, such jobs are very much under threat because of AI. And in this context, I would like to know, you showed us this trailer with Albert Einstein. Was this an AI-generated trailer? Or was it an actual actor? If it was a proper actor, then I'm impressed. If it was AI, then I must say that's quite scary.

Well, let me answer this by saying usually for any such films, we use about 50% AI. So it's a mix of human actors and artificial intelligence. And that, of course, clearly reduces the cost of production and also gives us more room for creativity. And the second question I'll have to look at up. But as far as I know, no money has been paid between telecom and Google here. Of course, license fees are always paid, but you can also use another client in connection with our magenta TV. For instance, Samsung and then this would not go through your Gmail account necessarily. You can also use another account. So there are alternative access options. If you like, we can put you in touch with one of our technicians and he can give you more information about how to do this.

Another question.

I believe that my question has not been answered. My question was I said that I'm having some ethical problems with holding Telekom shares and benefiting from the profits that you have generated. So can you give me -- I don't know, piece of advice or can you dispel my concerns at all because I am a Telekom shareholder and I mean can you sort of encourage or motivate me to buy more shares because your answer was kind of a very general answer. And it would be nice if I could filter out some feedback specific to me. When I try to do that, it would be something along the lines of, we don't care about ethics at all and if you don't like it, then just sell off your stock, but I can't believe that this is what you were actually trying to say. That's why I'm saying I don't think my question has been answered, so it would be nice if you could specifically react to what I said about my ethical concerns with buying Telekom shares due to the situation in the U.S.

My answer is this. Telekom is active in Western countries and in Europe and in the U.S. We don't have a footprint in Asia or Africa or South America. And in these countries, we represent the rule of law and the relevant laws. And that also holds true for the U.S., not just since the Trump administration took office, but we've always honored the laws and regulations there. We have more than 70,000 employees in the U.S., which means that we have a lot of responsibility also for their families. In the U.S., in particular, Telekom has a reputation of being one of the cost-efficient providers that offers excellent quality at the same time. And we also cover those groups of the population that cannot afford an expensive AT&T and Verizon contract. So in addition to the 75,000 staff that work for us, we have hundreds of thousands of customers. And so we have a footprint in America where we have an American democracy. And if there's anything to criticize, I can't do that because I can't change it. If you demand that telecom withdraw from the U.S. because you don't like the current political system there, then, yes, that is up to you. But Telekom cannot take responsibility for that sort of thing. I couldn't take responsibility for that because we do have responsibility for a lot of people in the U.S. We are the most important provider of 5G services in the U.S., for instance and let me reiterate. Our corporate values that we represent and that we also stick to in Germany and elsewhere in terms of diversity, in terms of freedom of opinion, et cetera, these values apply in the U.S. just as they apply in Greece, Poland, Germany, et cetera. And we cannot take any political influence that would just curve us. And of course, we would never approve any breach of the rule of law in the form of corruption or anything else, no matter where it is. And as far as the shareholder structure is concerned, we follow the rules of the capital markets. And whoever wants to buy stock, can do that. I don't know every individual shareholder. There are millions of shareholders across the globe. We have a lot of shareholders from Germany, but also a lot of shareholders in the U.S. who play a very dominant role in the global capital markets anyway. I hope that this has -- I don't know. I can see you're nodding. I mean we can't discuss that by literally any further here, but I hope that my answer has provided some insight.

Well, you're not making it any easier for me to take a decision. I'm not expecting you to interfere with policymakers or to completely withdraw from the U.S., but I was hoping to see more, say, commitment or maybe I was expecting you to come up with a statement that would put me in a position to continue holding Telekom stock with a clean conscience. And I'm a little disappointed that you haven't made that decision any easier for me. It is still a difficult decision, but thank you anyway.

Let me add to this. Needless to say, the Supervisory Board and the Board of Management are also dealing with the questions that you just raised. And the Supervisory Board believes that Deutsche Telekom's values are being filled with life. But the world is not just black and white. It is gray, and that's something that we need to handle, and that always comes with new challenges.

All right. There's another follow-up question.

Mr. Hottges, Dr. Illek, thank you very much for answering the questions. Nonetheless, my questions have not been answered completely. I asked about the open cloud that was the talk of the town a couple of weeks ago, what's Telekom's position about that? But I did ask about it, didn't I? And then you've provided the same answer to another of my questions last year. But in Spain, we also have a capital increase and prices go up and up. And you do -- you buy back the shares and the share prices are down. And that happens with a lot of other companies, too, like [indiscernible] sometimes the share prices are up but just briefly, and then they plummet again. So my question is, what does Germany have to do? For instance, the main shareholder of VARTA also said that he doesn't understand how Germany is handling the situation. Why small investors are put at such a big disadvantage compared to the big investors. There was one company where -- that did a capital increase and then reduced capital at the same time. Now that is permissible under German law. How is that even possible? So that's what my question was all about. It's a theoretical question, which is what needs to happen in order for capital increases to be possible in Germany again. And you did not answer that. Well, I did answer your question. I mean that's what you said last time, too, because I brought up the same question last year. Sorry. And I have another question regarding the taxes and electricity costs. How high are they like electricity costs like internationally speaking? Are we at the top? And how about taxes, yes, I forgot to ask about that? Thank you. And thank you for allowing -- for answering the question so far.

Okay. So we have one question to go. Actually, only follow-up questions are permissible now. Okay. Then one last question. The speakers of mic, we can't hear him.

I do have a T-shirt for you. Now if we manage to come to a close here sometime tonight, then I can give you this T-shirt.

Okay. Then Mr. [indiscernible] question on the D&O insurance. The D&O insurance costs EUR 365 million of which Supervisory Board members and Board of Management members. Yes, are covered -- I'm not aware of any damages. I'm not aware of any cases where we would have used the insurance.

Now have all questions been answered. There's a last question, but this is really the last question.

Sorry. The factory that you talked about for all these servers. If you want to build another one in Germany, then let me tell you the wind turbines and not in Germany often stand still because the energy cannot be used and -- because in Bavaria, I mean Bavaria prevents the energy that is generated in the north from being transported to the south, and they've been doing that for decades. Just to let you know. I mean there's enough energy in the north, just throwing it out there, wind energy.

Well, let me try to answer this question. I hope I got it right. As for Anthropic and Claude, Telekom yes, uses both of them as important elements of our AI portfolio. Of course, we always make sure that compliance and data protection rules are adhered to. We're not using these technologies exclusively. Claude as part of our serving offers and we have piloted Claude in the company actively. And currently, there is a discussion about gaining accesses for Anthropic and using that client, too. Right now, we are using Azure a great deal, needless to say. And we bought 50,000 licenses from OpenAI and for ChatGPT enterprise for our staff. But needless to say, we are using different large language models. We are working with different partners. And that's why we are sort of agnostic, if you will. And -- but yes, we haven't exclusively opted for one technology or another. Right. I think the last point raised was more of a statement than a question. It was said that a lot of wind energy is generated in Northern Germany. So that would actually be a question to a Board member from RWE and how this energy could possibly be made available to the data centers when the sun is not shining. But yes, we might want to discuss that on another occasion. So let me ask for the last time, have all questions of the shareholders been answered? I hereby state that all questions have been answered and I hereby close the general debate.

I would like to thank all speakers for their contributions and the Board of Management for answering the questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now proceed to the vote pursuant to Section 17 Paragraph 2 of the bylaws that is my responsibility as Chair of the meeting to determine the manner and order of the votes. Voting will take place via mobile voting devices that we're using as electronic ballot boxes. So votes are assigned to shares by scanning the QR code printed on your AGM card. The votes recorded using the mobile voting devices will be transferred to a computer system for vote counting after the voting period closes. The transfer and the subsequent counting will be supervised by a notary. The addition method is used to determine the voting results. In this process, the yes and no votes are counted separately and then added together to determine the total number of votes cast. Abstentions will not be counted. To ensure material supervision, you may cast your vote only here in the main room that is in this New York hall, including the gallery accessible to you. If you wish to participate in the voting, please proceed to the main room now and have your AGM card ready. For the sake of clarity, I would like to point out that voting by the company's proxies as well as voting by those intermediaries, proxy advisers and shareholder associations that make use of the virtual voting card service will take place differently from what was previously stated. They are cast by the present proxy holders or the present representative of the respective intermediary, proxy adviser or shareholder association releasing the votes previously submitted electronically. Subsequently, these votes are also entered into the computer system for vote counting. In addition, shareholders have made use of the option to vote by mail. These postal votes have also already been electronically recorded and are taken into account by the computer during the vote count. Before we proceed to the vote, I will once again announce the current attendance. So the number of shares has changed. Right now, we have 3,432,207,603 (sic) [ 3,432,207,306 ] no-par-value shares that corresponds to EUR 8,787,450,703.36 or 69.97% of the capital stock, which is -- consists of various parts. The relevant numbers will be shown on the screen in a moment likely. Here they are. In addition, we've received postal votes for 19,899,889 no-par-value shares, which will be taken into account for the voting result later on. This means we have more than 4 billion no-par-value shares and this corresponds to 70.38% of the capital stock. As for the individual items on the agenda, I would like to point out that I will, first of all, take a vote on the proposals made by management. We will now proceed to the votes on the administration's proposed resolutions regarding agenda items 2 through to 11. The updated version of the management's proposed resolution for agenda item 2 is up for a vote. I already presented this when I called for agenda items 2 through 11 prior to the general debate. The differences from the proposed resolution contained in the invitation to the AGM result from the change in the number of shares entitled to dividends compared to the number used as a basis in the invitation. As previously announced, the dividend to be distributed in accordance with the proposed resolution remains unchanged at EUR 1 per share -- per no-par-value share. For agenda item 3 to 11, the management's proposed resolutions are presented for a vote with a wording derived from the invitation to today's AGM published in the Federal Gazette on the 27th of February 2026. Regarding agenda items 3 and 4, I would like to draw your attention to the prohibition on voting pursuant to Section 136 of the German Stock Corporation Act. Furthermore, for the sake of order, I would like to point out that regarding agenda item 5, that anyone who wishes to reject only 1 or 2 of the appointments of Deloitte proposed under subitems A through C must vote against the entire resolution under agenda Item 5. If this proposed resolution is rejected by a majority, I will conduct a separate vote on subitems A, B and C. Regarding agenda item 7, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in this resolution, you may vote separately on the election of each candidate by way of a separate vote. Resolutions on agenda items 2 through 11 require a simple majority of the valid votes cast. The resolution on agenda Item 8 requires, in addition to a simple majority of the valid votes cast a majority of at least 3/4 of the share capital represented at the time of the resolution. The respective resolutions on agenda items 9 and 10 additionally require a simple majority of the share capital represented at the time of the resolution. If you wish to vote for or against one or more of the -- the management's proposed resolutions regarding agenda items 2 through 11, you must now proceed to the main room that is here in the New York hall, including the gallery accessible to you and have your AGM card ready. The votes will be consolidated. This means that voting will take place in a single round using the mobile voting devices with each item on the ballot treated as a separate matter. You decide independently of one another, to what extent you will participate in the voting by casting your vote and whether you will vote yes, no or abstain. Once voting has begun, give a clear hand signal to the staff members assigned to collect your votes. A staff member with then approach you. In fact, they're already waiting. First, present your AGM card to them so that the QR code on it can be scanned. Next, for each of management's proposed resolutions regarding agenda items 2 through 11, please indicate whether you support management's proposal that is whether you wish to vote yes or oppose it. That is whether you wish to vote no. If you wish to abstain from voting on the -- on management's proposed resolutions regarding individual agenda items, please indicate that as well. Next, review the voting preference displayed on the mobile voting device, confirm to the staff member that your voting preference is accurately reflected. After this confirmation, the staff member will cast your vote. If you wish to abstain from voting, on all agenda items regarding management's proposed resolutions. You do not need to inform our staff of your voting preference. If you have any questions about the procedure, our staff will, of course, be happy to assist you. I now ask our staff to collect the votes here in the main room. Voting is hereby opened. And I am indicating this by way of the guard. [Voting]

Have all shareholders who wish to vote yes or no on one or more of the management's proposed resolutions regarding agenda items 2 through 11 cast their votes? And there are still votes to be cast? Please indicate a clear hand signal if this is the case. Let me ask again. Are there still those to be cast, please give a clear signal with your hand. This is not the case. I hereby declare that all the votes on agenda items 2 through 11 have been cast. I hereby close the voting. I will announce the results of the vote as soon as tally is available. The notary public will now count the vote. There will be a brief break, and I will come back to you. Thank you. [Break]

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now continue. I have the voting results before me. Now and I have a photograph, yes, thank you. The general meeting has approved all of the Board's proposed resolutions. I will now announce the results on the individual items on the agenda, and I will give you the voting results. Where am I now? Yes. The general meeting has approved the proposed resolutions with the number of votes presented. We had 70.38% presence during the vote. On Item 2 of the agenda, the result was 99.85%. This was the resolution on the appropriation of dividend of profits in line with the presence that I immediately presented before the votes and the numbers are available for -- before inspection here. On agenda Item 3, there was the result of 99.21% of the necessary votes. So discharge was granted for the members of the Management Board. On Item 4, the approval was 95.4%, and this was the resolution on the approval of the actions of the members of the Supervisory Board for the period effected. Thank you very much on behalf of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board. On Item 5 on the agenda, the result is 99.62% of votes cast. So we have the necessary simple majority of votes and Deloitte GMBH Wirtschaftspr fungsgesellschaft Munich was appointed as auditor and group auditor for 2026, auditor for a review of the condensed financial statements and the interim group management report for the 2026 financial year and as an auditor for any review of additional interim financial reports for the 2026 financial year and the first quarter of the 2027 financial year. On Item 6 on the agenda. There was approval of 99.68%, reaching the simple majority necessary and Deloitte GMBH Wirtschaftspr fungsgesellschaft Munich was appointed as auditor for sustainability reporting if this is required by the government. And if the task is not part of the auditor's activities anyway. On the election of the Supervisory Board, Mr. Frank Appel received 93.06% of the votes so with a simple majority necessary. Dr. Appel was elected as the Supervisory Board member. On Stefan B. Wintels, 85.51% of the vote cast elected him as a Supervisory Board member. Dr. Thomas Dohmke received 99.17% of the votes cast and thus reached the necessary simple majority. So he is now a member of the Supervisory Board. On Dr. Philipp Herzig, the 99.08% -- sorry, 98.08% of the cast vote and a simple majority, Dr. Philipp Herzig was appointed member to the Supervisory Board. I would like to express me thank you for giving me and colleagues for trust. On agenda Item 8, 95.62% of the votes cast, and this means the necessary qualified majority decided about the cancellation of authorized capital 2022 and the creation of authorized capital 2026, the full content is to be seen under agenda Item 8 in the invitation. On Item 9 of the agenda, 98.32% of the votes cast. Thus, a simple majority was in favor of the resolution on the amendment of Section 13 of the articles of incorporation and the remuneration of the Supervisory Board members for the full text. Please view the invitation under Item 9. On item 10 of the agenda, 57.14% of the votes cast decided on the inclusion of a jurisdiction clause in Section 21 of the articles of incorporation following the proposal as shown under Item 10 in the invitation to this AGM. On item 11, 95.11% of the votes cast, thus the necessary simple majority approved the remuneration report for the year 2025. So I now only focused on the necessary votes and the detailed results will -- were shown on the screen as you saw. And I point -- I refer you to the numbers shown on screen. All interested shareholders can also get the results at the speakers' desk and you can also see these results on the web page of the company after the meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, this leads us to the end of our agenda. I would like to thank you very much on behalf of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board for your personal participation in this year's AGM. And I also would like to thank you for my election, for the election of Mr. Wintels and the other 2 members. I would like to thank the employees who help prepare and organize this AGM and contributed to its smooth conduct. Yes, this is well deserved. It was a long day, a long evening. Finally, I would like to note that the next Annual General Meeting of Deutsche Telekom AG is expected to take place on the 14th of April 2027 in Bonn and we invite all the shareholders once again cordially. I wish you a safe trip home. Goodbye. Today's meeting is closed. Goodbye, and see you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]