Deutsche Telekom management board member Reinhard Clemens will leave the company at the start of next year, after failing to halt a slide in sales and earnings at the T-Systems IT unit for which he was responsible. Deutsche Telekom did not say in its statement on Wednesday why Clemens was leaving after nearly 10 years, saying only it had reached an agreement with him to terminate his contract.

Deutsche Telekom said it had picked a successor to Clemens but could not yet release the person's name at the request of the person's current employer. "In a difficult competitive environment, he (Clemens) provided the company with important momentum. His successor possesses the necessary experience and know-how to continue to drive consistently T-Systems' transformation," supervisory board Chairman Ulrich Lehner said in the statement.

T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom's technical and communications consulting business, posted a 5.2 percent decline in revenue and a 16 percent drop in order intake in the first half of the year amid sustained industry pricing pressure. Core profit fell by nearly a quarter in the first half, after a 21 percent drop in the full-year 2016. "The essential aspect of our work in recent years was to make the company future ready and to focus on the challenges posed by digitisation. We did so successfully, even though we have not yet achieved all our objectives completely," Clemens said in the statement.

Copyright Reuters, 2017