American Tower Sees Accelerating Global Expansion

By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor

American Tower (NYSE: AMT) continues to bolster its position as the world’s largest independent tower company. With significant new tower builds during the quarter, along with some small acquisitions and site sales, the company ended 1Q22 with a total of 219,266 towers worldwide. During its quarterly earnings call, AMT reported that total property revenues, including contributions from both towers and data centers, increased 22 percent on a year-over-year basis to $2.6 billion. Adjusted EBITDA grew 13 percent to $1.6 billion while AFFO came in at $1.2 billion, up 7 percent YoY. The company attributes the strong growth to global secular trends for mobile data consumption and continued heavy capital expenditures by its mobile network operator tenants around the world as they install equipment to activate new spectrum. MNOs in the U.S. and Europe are focused on new 5G networks while 4G coverage and densification continues apace among MNOs in developing markets. Internally, AMT is on track with its construction program to build 6,000-7,000 new towers in 2022. The company completed 1,437 new builds in 1Q22 across its global footprint with the majority split between India and Africa. Continue Reading