The $37 Billion Question: Where Telecom IT Spend Goes

We ran an OrbitShift scan across the 10 largest global telecom operators, including Verizon, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile, Spectrum, Orange, SoftBank Corp., América Móvil, Telefónica, and Vodafone. Combined, these ten accounts represent roughly $36.6B in modeled 2026 IT spend, against a combined $732B in revenue.

Here's what the data reveals about where the real enterprise opportunities lie.

Sales and marketing is the telecom spend signature

IT infrastructure absorbs 50% of modeled spend across the cohort, same as every industry we've scanned. The #2 category is where telecom differs: Sales & Marketing takes 23.2% of spend here, more than double what we see in other sectors. Manufacturing is $0 across all 10 accounts. This is an asset-light, service-operator model. Every dollar not spent building physical product goes into acquiring, retaining, and upselling subscribers in markets where switching costs keep falling.

Every account is transforming in the same direction

5G network densification and next-generation wireless show up in the priorities of all 10 accounts. AI-first, agentic AI, and GenAI operational deployment is universal too. Fiber expansion and portfolio reshaping (acquisitions, divestments, joint ventures) appears explicitly in 9 of 10. SoftBank Corp. is the exception, and it's an interesting one: instead of expanding fiber access, it's spinning fiber operations into a joint venture with Sony while building out AI data center fiber capacity separately.

A few concrete examples: AT&T completed the Lumen Mass Markets fiber acquisition in February 2026, adding over 4 million fiber locations across 11 states. T-Mobile closed the UScellular acquisition and launched two fiber joint ventures worth $2.7B with Oak Hill Capital and Wren House. Vodafone is reshaping its entire European footprint, selling Vodafone Spain and Vodafone Italy, merging with Three in the UK, and exiting its VodafoneZiggo stake. Telefónica is divesting across eight Latin American markets to concentrate on Spain, Germany, the UK, and Brazil.

Satellite-based direct-to-device connectivity is another theme worth watching. It shows up in 3 of 10 accounts (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile's joint venture), a much smaller footprint than 5G or AI, but early enough that account teams should be tracking who moves next.

India GCCs, but a different shape than automotive

Most of the cohort runs India delivery centers, several of them massive. Vodafone's VOIS operations span Pune, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad with roughly 30,000 employees, one of the largest telecom GCCs anywhere. Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems India covers Bengaluru, Chennai, and Mumbai. AT&T and Verizon both run established centers across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune.

But new GCC activity in telecom looks narrower than what we've seen scanning automotive, healthcare, or banking. The standout move in the last six months is T-Mobile opening its first India GCC in Hyderabad, targeting 1,000 employees by 2027. Beyond that, the established centers (Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, AT&T, Verizon) made no new facility announcements in this window. América Móvil and SoftBank Corp., the two accounts without a large India presence, aren't LatAm or domestic-Japan operators pulled toward India delivery the way global carriers are.

For account teams, the telecom buying center leans harder toward marketing and subscriber growth than any other sector we've scanned, and the India engineering base is concentrated in a handful of very large, very established GCCs rather than fresh openings. It’s essential to know which of the two you're selling into before you build the pitch.