Investment in research and development

Research and development (R&D) expenditure includes pre-production research and development, such as the search for alternative products, processes, systems, and services. By contrast, we do not class as R&D expenditure the costs of developing system and user software which is designed to improve productivity and make our business processes more effective. R&D expenditure in the Deutsche Telekom Group amounted to EUR 30 million in 2022 (2021: EUR 33 million). As the parent company, Deutsche Telekom AG bears part of the Group’s research and development expenditure. At EUR 15 million, this was on a par with the level in the prior year. In 2022, our Group’s investments in internally generated intangible assets to be capitalized were also up year-on-year at EUR 702 million compared with EUR 612 million for the previous year. These investments predominantly relate to internally developed software, mainly in our Group Headquarters & Group Services segment. In 2022, Deutsche Telekom AG’s investments in internally generated intangible assets to be capitalized were EUR 28 million compared with EUR 29 million for the previous year.