American Tower (NYSE:AMT) raised its full-year 2026 outlook for the third time this year after reporting third-quarter results supported by steady global tower leasing and continued outperformance at its CoreSite data center business.
President and CEO Steve Vondran said the company’s tower leasing operations performed in line with expectations, while CoreSite benefited from strong demand across cloud, network, enterprise and artificial intelligence customers. “The momentum we’re seeing across the company, combined with the benefit of our share repurchase activity, gives us confidence to raise our full-year outlook,” Vondran said.
Third-Quarter Performance
Chief Financial Officer Rod Smith said consolidated property revenue increased about 5% year over year in the third quarter, excluding non-cash straight-line revenue and foreign-exchange effects. On a cash, foreign-exchange-neutral basis and normalized for one-time DISH-related churn, property revenue grew approximately 7%.
Organic tenant billings growth was about 1%, or approximately 4% excluding the DISH-related impact. Data center cash revenue increased approximately 16%. Adjusted EBITDA rose more than 2% excluding straight-line revenue and foreign exchange effects, or more than 5% on a cash, FX-neutral basis after normalizing for DISH churn.
Cash adjusted EBITDA margins declined roughly 50 basis points from a year earlier, primarily because of DISH-related churn and lower services contributions. Excluding the DISH impact, margins expanded by 10 basis points. Attributable AFFO per share grew more than 1% excluding foreign exchange effects; after normalizing for DISH churn and refinancing costs, AFFO per share rose approximately 6% on an FX-neutral basis.
Regionally, U.S. and Canada organic growth was flat, but approximately 4% excluding DISH churn. Africa and Asia-Pacific organic growth exceeded 8%, while Europe grew more than 4%. Latin America organic growth declined approximately 2%, driven mainly by elevated churn in Brazil.
Smith said the company still views 2026 as a trough year for U.S. and Canada organic tenant billings growth and expects growth to accelerate in 2027. He cited the eventual elimination of DISH-related churn and expectations for broader carrier activity.
CoreSite Drives Higher Revenue Outlook
American Tower increased its full-year property revenue outlook by $55 million at the midpoint, an approximately 1% increase from its prior outlook. The updated forecast implies more than 4% year-over-year property revenue growth excluding non-cash straight-line revenue and FX effects, and nearly 7% cash, FX-neutral growth when normalized for one-time DISH churn.
The increase includes roughly $10 million of data center outperformance and $45 million from other items, including pass-through and straight-line revenue. The company raised its projected data center revenue growth rate to approximately 16% for the year, from 15% in its prior outlook.
Vondran said CoreSite’s leasing activity remained strong and demand accelerated into the fourth quarter. He said the company expects 2026 to be another year of record leasing activity for the platform. CoreSite is pursuing a development pipeline that could nearly triple its current capacity, according to management.
During the question-and-answer session, Vondran said the company was seeing growing demand for interconnection, including cross-connects between enterprises, cloud providers, networks and AI companies. He described the trend as more than quarterly lumpiness, saying customers increasingly need direct connectivity to transfer large quantities of data.
American Tower said it continues to underwrite mid-teens or better stabilized yields on incremental CoreSite development investment. Smith added that cash mark-to-market performance was strong in the third quarter, though the company expects full-year cash mark-to-market results in the mid-single-digit range, around 6%.
Guidance, Capital Allocation and Canada Sale
While raising its property revenue outlook, American Tower maintained its adjusted EBITDA forecast. The company said about $10 million of data center outperformance and roughly $5 million of other favorable items were offset by approximately $15 million of lower network-services contribution.
Smith said the services reduction reflected timing shifts in certain customer projects rather than a reduction in organic leasing activity. American Tower now expects approximately $220 million in services revenue for the year. Construction management represents about half of services revenue, he said, and its growing contribution has reduced overall gross margins for the segment compared with historical levels.
The company also increased attributable AFFO guidance by $0.02 per share, primarily due to share repurchases. The revised outlook implies more than 3% year-over-year AFFO per share growth. Management reiterated that refinancing costs and lower services activity each represent about a 1% headwind to AFFO per share growth this year.
American Tower entered an agreement to sell its Canada portfolio for approximately $202 million, with closing expected in the fourth quarter. Smith said the transaction implies a multiple of roughly 26 times expected 2026 EBITDA and is expected to be immediately accretive to AFFO per share once completed. The company’s current outlook continues to include Canada’s full-year contribution, including $13 million of revenue, $8 million of adjusted EBITDA and $8 million of AFFO.
During the quarter, American Tower repurchased approximately $315 million of common stock and bought an additional $68 million through Oct. 20. Total repurchases since the program began in the fourth quarter of 2025 exceeded $950 million. The board subsequently authorized another $2 billion for the repurchase program, leaving approximately $3.1 billion of capacity.
The company ended the quarter with leverage of 4.9 times, within its 3 times to 5 times target range, Smith said.
Wireless and Satellite Opportunities
Vondran cited four long-term drivers for wireless infrastructure demand: the capacity phase of 5G, future spectrum deployments, the eventual shift to 6G and AI-related traffic growth. He pointed to CTIA data showing U.S. wireless data consumption reached 159 trillion megabytes in 2025, up more than 20% year over year.
Management also addressed potential terrestrial network activity by satellite providers. Vondran said satellite service and terrestrial infrastructure are complementary, and that any provider seeking to compete at scale in U.S. wireless would need towers, fiber, backhaul, power and edge interconnection.
He declined to discuss specific talks with Starlink or other providers, but said American Tower is speaking with parties pursuing wireless ambitions. Vondran said the company believes its U.S. site portfolio and network-services capabilities position it to help providers deploy networks quickly.
American Tower also confirmed it owns DISH equipment on its towers following an abandonment order in the bankruptcy process. Vondran said the company can provide access to the equipment to interested parties.
About American Tower (NYSE:AMT)
American Tower Corporation (NYSE:AMT) is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates and develops wireless communications infrastructure. Its portfolio primarily includes communications towers, rooftop sites, distributed antenna systems and other infrastructure used by wireless carriers, broadcasters, governments and businesses to support voice, data and video communications.
The company leases space on its sites to multiple customers, allowing them to install antennas and related equipment without building and maintaining individual tower locations.
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