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 25 million in 2023 (2022: EUR 30 million). As the parent company, Deutsche Telekom AG bears part of the Group’s research and development expenditure. The expenditure was down year-on-year at EUR 11 million. In 2023, our Group’s investments in internally generated intangible assets to be capitalized were slightly up year-on-year at EUR 708 million compared with EUR 702 million for the previous year. These investments predominantly relate to internally developed software, mainly in our Group Headquarters & Group Services segment. In 2023, Deutsche Telekom AG’s investments in internally generated intangible assets to be capitalized were EUR 2 million compared with EUR 28 million for the previous year.