BT acquires struggling telecoms rival TalkTalk for £400m

What happened

COMMS BT acquires (one company buying another) struggling telecoms rival TalkTalk for £400m by Suhasini Srinivasaragavan 5 Oct 2026 Save article BT Offices, London. BT Group has acquired the consumer and wholesale operations of its struggling UK rival TalkTalk for roughly £400m.

'Immediate priority is to stabilise the business,' says BT Group CEO Allison Kirkby. The company said that it will “step in immediately” to provide uninterrupted services to TalkTalk’s 2.5m customers, which contains around 250,000 retail customers reportedly deemed to be “vulnerable”.

Its wholesale unit, PXC, has roughly 1m customers, including the British Ministry of Defence. The 2003-founded business has struggled to compete against its bigger rivals in recent years, including the likes of including BT and Sky.

Its retail customer base, as a result, has dwindled from around 4m in 2019 to roughly 1.5m this year. BT, on the other hand, now boasts more than 32m retail customers globally after this purchase. It is the UK’s largest broadband provider with a market share of about 30pc, according to third-party analysis.