Deutsche Telekom, the German telecoms group, gave a glimpse of the pressure it is under in the US when it said dollar-denominated revenues there dropped in the third quarter after its T-Mobile US unit lost 77,000 customers.

The Bonn-based company said the loss of subscribers was “unsatisfactory”, but that it was in part balanced out by strong growth in data-services – a result of the spread of so-called 3G-enabled handsets giving internet access.