Deutsche Telekom raised its forecast for annual earnings for 2018 on Thursday after recording strong revenue and profit growth during the third quarter (Q3).

"Things are looking up in all areas of the group", Tim Hoettges, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Deutsche Telekom, said, adding the Bonn-based company's performance in Q3 had enabled it to "set the bar a fraction higher" and sent a "very optimistic signal" for the full-year.

Deutsche Telekom reported that net revenues increased by 4.7 percent to 19.1 billion euros (21.8 billion U.S. dollars) in Q3, while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBIDTA) and net profits were also both up at 6.2 billion euros (plus 8.5 percent) and 1.3 billion euros (plus 6.2 percent) respectively.

As a consequence, the telecommunications services provider now expects adjusted EBITDA to come in at a total of 23.6 billion euros in 2018 after forecasting around 23.3 billion euros at the start of the fiscal year. The outlook for corporate free cash flow was also raised on Thursday to around 6.3 billion euros from a previous estimate of 6.2 billion euros.

Deutsche Telekom attributed some of its quarterly success to ongoing efforts to expand the network of the company in its German home market. More powerful fiber-optic and LTE mobile products which were now available throughout most of the country were proving a "magnet for customers." The development which as reflected in a 30 percent annual rise in fiber-optic customers to 11.6 million in Q3.

The DAX-listed group further noted that the recently announced merger of its U.S. subsidiary T-Mobile with rival Sprint had not led to a slow-down in the United States. Instead, T-Mobile continued to post "record figures" with total revenue increasing by 8 percent to 10.7 billion dollars and 1.6 million new customers being added to the network.

Financial indicators also improved again for Deutsche Telekom's ailing T-Systems IT division in Q3. Unit revenue grew by 2.8 percent to 1.8 billion euros alongside a 6.1 percent expansion of adjusted EBIDTA to 139 million euros.

Growing demand for cloud computing services was cited in the earnings figures as one of the reasons for the enhanced performance of T-Systems. Earlier, the new division head Adel Al-Saleh unveiled plans to return T-Systems to profitability until 2020 by investing in cloud-computing solutions and eliminating up to 10,500 jobs.

Deutsche Telekom is Europe's largest telecommunications company and employs more than 217,000 employees across the world. Prior to its privatization in 1995, the Bonn-based company was state-owned enterprise (SoE) which was established as part of the German government's postal sector monopoly in 1947.