OREANDA-NEWS. It is important to remember that mid-2012 Deutsche Telekom consolidated external business under T-Systems in what is known as the Market Unit and pooled all of the Group's internal IT departments in a separate unit called Telekom IT. The latter aims to save costs for the Group and provides internal IT services by billing only cost, no longer margins. The Market Unit is responsible worldwide for serving Deutsche Telekom's corporate customers and operates in accordance with the principles of revenue and margin growth.

The positive trend for T-Systems in the fourth quarter of 2012 is continuing. In the first quarter of 2013, Deutsche Telekom AG's Systems Solutions segment recorded strong order entry of EUR 2.1 billion, up 33 percent compared with the prior-year period. This was due to agreements with EADS and the Swiss National Railways (SBB) as well as numerous deals for cloud services.

In the area of intelligent networks, T-Systems concluded further strategically important agreements and partnerships. The Deutsche Telekom subsidiary is working with BMW and Sixt to bring hotspots to the car from this summer and, for Daimler, it is developing the communications infrastructure for online services in the car.

External revenues remained almost stable at EUR 1.6 billion in what was a difficult competitive environment characterized by price pressure. By contrast, in the Telekom IT unit, which comprises the Group's internal IT business in Germany, revenue fell as expected, falling to 25 percent below the prior-year level due to seasonal effects. The EBIT margin of the Market Unit, which manages Deutsche Telekom's corporate customers worldwide, increased from minus 0.7 percent in the prior year to 0.4 percent. This is the result of efficiency enhancement measures, as well as of improvements in numerous new agreements from the past year.