This year's Supergrowers list showcases 60 of the fastest-growing large public companies across six industries and headquartered in North America and Europe. While each company's growth story is unique, they share key trends that offer valuable lessons for any business aiming for practical and sustainable growth. Explore the full list and dive into our research here:
Telecommunication companies, one leg of the tech-media-telco industry, may now be considered the laggards of TMT in stark contrast to their heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The telco boom period, driven by the rise of the internet and mobile communications, stalled once essential networks were in place. Now, both infrastructure players and operators face market saturation, intense competition, and the burden of the high capital expenditures needed to support the insatiable demand for bandwidth and network capacity upgrades as impediments to industry growth.
While the focus for the supergrower rankings is public companies, hidden market dynamics come to light when we consider non-public companies. This may be particularly important to this sector, which was traditionally dominated by incumbent players whose current growth is impacted by legacy business units. An example of this is the green field growth seen in the fiber-optic industry, represented by leading private companies such as Metronet. T-Mobile and KKR's recently formed joint venture to acquire Metronet may be an early indicator of the expected consolidation to come in the fiber market. Many of the incumbents are still decommissioning their legacy/copper networks, which masks their revenue from this growing segment.
Still, it's always instructive to look at what it takes to grow—and grow well—despite daunting industry dynamics. We identified pockets of growth across different regions and market segments where telco supergrowers (some with consistent, strong double-digit growth over a two-year period) reside.
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Out of the 10 fastest growing telco companies on the Supergrowers list, only one is based in the U.S. Among this international group, many grew through geographic expansion, gaining an initial foothold through acquisitions then expanding organically and aggressively by cross-selling products and services following the push into new regions. Take for example the Romanian-based infrastructure provider, Digi Communications, which grew by extending services in core markets and used tuck-in acquisitions and partnerships to expand operations and increase penetration of services such as Pay TV.
Growing demand for cellular service, especially in emerging markets, is leading to growth for infrastructure providers. Even in established markets, densification in urban areas and the need to improve 5G coverage is filling the coffers of companies like Italian infrastructure provider Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane S.p.A.
Product-focused expansions are one of the other leading telco growth strategies. For operators focused on less mature markets, bright spots include the growth of digital service offerings, sparked by rising popularity and acceptance of telehealth and continued expansion of digital apps supporting financial services, as exhibited by Veon. Demand for always-on Wi-Fi means that infrastructure providers have market-expanding opportunities equipping all forms of transportation (including buses and trains) as well as public spaces and parks.
In this dive into the telco industry within our broader supergrowers research, we discuss how three of these companies have grown and adapted, spotlighting their recent achievements and the tactics driving their success.
Digi Communications is making waves across Europe, emerging as one of the fastest-growing telecom players in the region, powered by high growth in its mobile segment. Strategic moves like the acquisition of Nowo in Portugal and steady expansion in Spain and Italy along with a focus on affordable pricing and high-performance service put Digi at the top of the list of public telco supergrowers in 2025.
UK-based Helios Towersplc may not loom over its competitors in the number of towers it owns, but its growth has come instead from increasing the number of tenants occupying each tower. This approach allows Helios to spread the fixed costs of the tower across a larger number of tenants with the company exhibiting a 9% growth rate in tenancy from 2022 to 2024. However, to put it into context, mature companies in this space already have most, if not all, operators as their tenants, so the growth is a result of underutilized tower estate and is applicable mainly to tower companies with one or two tenants. For Helios, it doesn't hurt that their core market – Africa and the Middle East – is a high-growth market where they have been able to significantly increase tower leases and build-to-suit programs.
Flying high above the stratosphere, mobile satellite communications provider Iridium Communications Inc. – the lone U.S.-based company on our list – expanded its reach into the fast-growing Low Earth Orbit (LEO) segment of the satellite industry. However, as interesting as their success looks at first glance, Iridium is competing against the private behemoths in this industry – SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon's Project Kuiper – by focusing on specialized, high-reliability communication services across various industries. Continuing to focus on these niche markets may be the best opportunity for Iridium to grow alongside the heavy-weight private companies in the competitive satellite market.
Return to the Supergrowers homepage to view the full list, or learn more about our methodology
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