Interactive
Facing unprecedented industry transformation and emerging competitive threats, many telecommunications companies are turning to mergers and acquisitions to add new capabilities and evolve their businesses for the next era. At the same time, in the biggest industry reset since deregulation, the integrated telco is giving way to more disaggregated, narrowly focused business models. We’re tracking telecom M&A activity around the world, and we’ll publish the latest developments in this dashboard each quarter.
Here are some of the key takeaways through the second quarter of 2026.
- Deal value flat: Telecom M&A deal value stagnated in the first half of 2026 vs. the first half of 2025, staying flat at $65 billion. That’s despite a 40% increase from $27 billion in the first quarter of the year to $38 billion in the second. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa continued to lead regionally in the second quarter, anchored by the $24 billion deal between Altice France and a consortium comprising Bouygues, Iliad, and Orange. The Americas dominated in 2024 and 2025, but their share of deal value fell from 89% in the first half of last year to 26% in this year’s first half. Activity remained highly concentrated, with the top five deals accounting for more than 80% of total value across 43 deals.
- Trends to watch: We anticipate that M&A activity will remain subdued. Macroeconomic uncertainty—including trade and tariff risks and geopolitical tensions—continue to present major headwinds. In addition, telco investments remain concentrated in fiber networks, data centers, and AI-enabled telecom infrastructure.
- Biggest deal: The year’s largest transaction so far is the French consortium’s $24 billion agreement to acquire Altice France’s telecoms business SFR. It represented roughly 37% of total deal value in the first half of 2026.
- Scale deals dominate: It’s unsurprising, then, that scale deals accounted for about 66% of first-half deal value, totaling about $43 billion. Still, that’s a decline from the 70%, or $46 billion, they contributed in the first half of 2025. Divestments accounted for 28% of deal value in the first half of this year, the same as the prior-year period, though infrastructure divestments increased their share of deal value this year while connectivity and services divestments’ share declined. The mix continues to point to a market using divestments to free capital and refine portfolios, even as divestment activity has steadily declined since 2021.
- Long-term view: Scale deals and connectivity and services divestments, the two largest categories by value, have made up about 70% of all deal value over the past five years.