Analysis of Q2 2025 Earnings: American Tower, SBA Communications and Crown Castle
Q2 / 2025 Cell Tower Industry Update: Strong Growth, Strategic Shifts, and a New(ish) Competitor
In Q2 2025, the three major U.S.-based cell tower companies delivered strong results and signaled continued confidence in the sector:
American Tower reported robust growth, with application volumes climbing over 50%; the company is also making heavy investments in ground lease cell tower buyouts to strengthen its long-term portfolio.
Crown Castle, under newly appointed leadership, raised its financial guidance after cutting expenses and is moving forward with the planned sale of its small cell and fiber business.
SBA Communications increased its outlook, earned an S&P credit rating upgrade, and announced the sale of its Canadian tower portfolio.
Importantly, industry leaders see direct-to-device satellite technology not as a competitive threat, but as a complementary service—particularly for rural coverage—leaving the core macro tower business well-positioned for future growth.
Meanwhile, following the recently completed U.S. Cellular–T-Mobile transaction, a new publicly traded tower player has entered the scene: Array Digital Infrastructure (NASDAQ: AD), which owns and operates 4,400 cell towers across the United States.
At JW Tower & Telecom Consulting, we partner directly with landlords to help them make informed, strategic decisions regarding:
💰 Lease Buyouts – We help landlords evaluate cell tower lease buyout offers, negotiate better terms, and understand the impact of selling their lease rights. CGO, MD7, Nextier, The Lyle Company, SmartLink and Tower Alliance are just some of the companies that the big “3” cell tower companies (along with smaller companies) utilize to negotiate on their behalf.
🔄 Lease Amendments & Final Expirations– Whether it’s equipment upgrades, lease renewals, final expirations, or rent escalations, we review and negotiate terms to protect long-term value.
📝 New Cell Tower Lease Negotiations – We ensure landlords don’t leave money on the table and fully understand the impacts when carriers approach with new tower or rooftop agreements.
📞 Reach out today: jw@jwttc.com | (720) 295-5333
American Tower
Total application volumes (among big 3) increase more than 50% year-over-year
Organic tenant billings growth of 4.7%
200% year over year increase in co-locations
Core-Site double-digit revenue growth and gross margin expansion
US cellular represents less than 1% of US/Canada revenues
DISH/Boost represents slightly over 4% of US revenues
Capital spend for ground lease purchases (cell tower lease buyouts / cell tower easements) totaled $41.9M, brining the 1st half 2025 total to $86.5M
American Tower is forecasting a total 2025 capital spend on ground lease purchases to be $200M to $220M total, which indicates that their program will be slightly backloaded
Re: Risk of satellite to macro cell towers, and American Tower owning a piece of AST Spacemobile:
“ We continue to see direct-to-device as the complementary technology to the macro cell networks, delivering bandwidth via macro towers continues to be the cheapest way to deliver bandwidth to the customers, no matter where they are. So we don't view it as athreat at all to our business in the U.S. or internationally, quite frankly. The places where satellite is going to be ideal or places that have lower population densities than what the carriers would like to cover through macro towers. So when you think about the Grand Canyon or rural Montana, those are places where that's going to be an excellent way to provide coverage. And we don't have towers there. And frankly, I don't want to build towers there because there's not a good business case for doing that.”
“Same thing internationally. If you look at sub-Saharan Africa, there are going to be places that are much better served by satellite. And again, we don't have towers in those areas and don't want to build towers in those areas. So overall, we believe it's complementary, not competitive. So if you think about where the satellite coverage is optimal. It's less than 100 pops per site, per some of the research just kind of been cited out there. So we view it as a nice niche market. We're happy with our investment in AST. We're really happy with the ringside seat that we have to see how this plays out. And it's all playing out just the way we thought. No threat and complementary, and might make an nice little profit on our investment there.” -Steve Vondran, President and CEO, American Tower
Crown Castle
Christian Hillabrant, was appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective September 15, 2025
Guidance raised by $10 million for site rental revenues, $25 million for adjusted EBITDA, and $35 million for AFFO for full-year 2025
SG&A expenses fell $37 million year-over-year (attributed to staffing reductions, office closures, and the absence of last year's $20 million in advisory fees)
On track to close small cell and fiber transaction in 2026
Minimal exposure to US cellular
Capital spend for ground lease purchases (cell tower lease buyouts / cell tower easements) totaled $34M in Q2, an increase over $24M in Q2/2024
Re: M&A activity, cell tower purchases and portfolio expansion:
“And we're not in the market now to try to go expand our footprint in the US because we have enough to do right now to get the deal closed that we're already working on. So I don't think the private market multiples where they are where they sit today much of an impact on Crown Castle's outlook over the course of 2025 and even into 2026 as we get the sale of our fiber solutions and small cell businesses completed.” -Daniel K. Schlanger, Interim President and CEO, Crown Castle
Re: Capital spend for ground lease purchases (cell tower lease buyouts / cell tower easements)
“So on the capital yeah. I mean, we'll have a whole bunch of things as I mentioned, but one of them will be land purchases. So you'll see capital for that. Some will be in systems. Some will be in sustaining CapEx. We talked about to kind of maintain our care infrastructure. So it happens to be a little more back-end loaded this year, as Dan pointed out. But we also say we are stepping up our land investments. So that's what's driving that.” -Sunit Patel, Chief Finacial Office, Crown Castle
SBA Communications
Increased full year outlook for key metrics
Received upgrade to BBB invest-grade rating from S&P - driven by stability and predictability of its cash flow
Announced sale of its 369 towers in Canada for $446M
US cellular revenue of $20M/ year
New US leasing business was ahead of expectations
Capital spend for ground lease purchases (cell tower lease buyouts / cell tower easements) totaled $9.4M
Re: New spectrum availability for carriers:
“The stuff that’s longer term that hasn’t been explicitly identified, but there are bands that have been named to be considered are the higher band stuff. I think it will propagate fine, but it will definitely require different and new radios and antennas in order to do that. So that’s favorable to us. And I do — I still believe that macro sites will be the primary way to get that spectrum deployed and used. It will still be the most efficient way. So I think what’s being talked about is still very much a macro-oriented solution. -Brendan Cavanagh, President and CEO, SBA Communications
Re: Commentary on satellite technology
“Yes. I think, well, just generally, our belief, we spent a lot of time looking at this. As you can imagine, it’s been a question that’s come up for a while and just for our own sake, we want to kind of have an informed view on it. And we’re pretty comfortable that it is a complementary solution. What it really comes down to is locations that are challenging to cover economically to cover from a traditional macro standpoint. Everything could be covered that way, but the cost in some of these more rural areas where you have less POPs or it’s harder to get a fiber-based backhaul, that kind of thing. Satellites become a pretty good solution to do that. But it’s modest coverage. You can’t do some of the things that you could do in an urban or suburban community with your device, but you can get basic connectivity. So I don’t really look at it as something that is truly competitive. I look at it as something that is complementary…” -Brendan Cavanagh, President and CEO, SBA Communications
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