Germany's Deutsche Telekom posted record-breaking turnover figures on Friday as its merged US unit T-Mobile continued to drive growth.

For 2020 as a whole, the telecommunications company earned revenue of €101 billion ($122.6 billion) following T-Mobile's $26 billion takeover of US competitor Sprint. It represents a 25.4% increase compared with the year before.

"We made history in 2020. We added a substantial and important chapter to Deutsche Telekom’s story," CEO Tim Höttges said in a statement.

"We closed a groundbreaking deal in the United States, improved our market position in Europe and at the same time made an important contribution to managing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic with our stable networks."

Adjusted net profit increased 15.5% year-on-year to €5.7 billion. Unadjusted net profit was up 7.5% to €4.2 billion.

Coronavirus effect

Roaming revenues did fall last year, as the Germany-based firm was hit by shop closures and reduced travel among customers due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Nevertheless, the importance of home internet connections grew as Deutsche Telekom added 388,000 broadband customers over the previous 12 months.

Deutsche Telekom's global reach became increasingly evident during 2020 as it did three quarters of its business outside of Germany, compared with just under 70% in 2019.

jsi/msh (Reuters, dpa)