AT&T On The Rise

Telecoms giant AT&T has struck a deal to buy Time Warner for 85.4 billion dollars. The deal is set to bring together 130 million cellphone customers and 25 million pay-TV subscribers with content from Time Warner's film studios, HBO, CNN and more. Company bosses have hailed the merge as a 'perfect match', but antitrust questions have already been raised by politicians with concerns that the new entity, with a potential market value of 310 billion dollars, will be bad for competition.

AT&T has been shifting its focus recently towards entertainment and content, acquiring DirecTV last year for 48.5 billion dollars. As the Statista infographic below shows, this approach has had a positive effect on the company's global brand value. Last year's jump of 20 percent may well be bettered in 2017, should regulators approve this latest deal.