1-Star Price
INVESTOR
5-Star Price
INVESTOR
Economic Moat
INVESTOR
Capital Allocation
INVESTOR
We think American Tower's strategy to diversify its tower portfolio globally leaves it best positioned among the three U.S. tower companies, as it is primed to benefit from the continually increasing demand in mobile data worldwide. However, we don't think veering into the data center business, which it did with its acquisition of CoreSite, will pay off, and it distracts from the tower focus we liked for American Tower.
American Tower owns and operates more than 220,000 cell towers throughout the U.S., Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. It also owns and/or operates 25 data centers in eight U.S. markets after acquiring CoreSite. On its towers, the company has a very concentrated customer base, with most revenue in each market being generated by just the top few mobile carriers. The company operates more than 40,000 towers in the U.S., which accounted for more than half of its total revenue in 2021. Outside the U.S., American Tower’s greatest presence is in India and Brazil, where it operates roughly 75,000 and 19,000 towers, respectively. American Tower operates as a real estate investment trust.
