Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) said it delivered “solid” second-quarter 2026 results, raised its full-year AFFO outlook and completed its transition into a pure-play U.S. tower operator following the sale of its small cell and fiber businesses.
President and CEO Chris Hillabrant said the company closed the sale of those businesses on May 1, calling it “an important milestone” that made Crown Castle “the only publicly traded pure-play U.S. tower operator.” He said the company is now focused on becoming a “best-in-class U.S. tower operator” through cost savings, operational efficiency and improved customer service.
Guidance raised on higher revenue and lower interest expense
Chief Financial Officer Sunit Patel said second-quarter organic growth, excluding Sprint cancellations and DISH terminations, was 3.9%, or $38 million, including a $5 million increase in other billings. Excluding the increase in other billings, organic growth was 3.6%. Organic growth would have been 4.2% if DISH revenues were excluded from prior-year site rental billings.
Those gains were more than offset in site rental revenue by $5 million of Sprint cancellations, $49 million of DISH terminations and a $25 million decline in non-cash straight-line revenue and amortization of prepaid rent.
Crown Castle raised its full-year 2026 outlook for site rental revenue by $5 million at the midpoint and increased its AFFO outlook by $5 million. Patel said the AFFO increase reflects a $5 million reduction in expected interest expense. The company maintained its adjusted EBITDA outlook, as higher revenue and $15 million of expected cost reductions are expected to be offset by a $20 million decrease in services contribution, primarily in the third quarter.
The company now expects full-year 2026 organic growth of 3.4%, excluding Sprint cancellations and DISH terminations, up from its prior guidance of 3.3%. If DISH revenues are excluded from prior-year site rental billings, full-year organic growth is expected to be 3.6%, compared with prior guidance of 3.5%.
Patel said Crown Castle continues to expect 2026 to represent the low point for organic growth. As of the end of the second quarter, more than 90% of its full-year 2026 organic growth, excluding Sprint and DISH impacts, was contracted, up from about 80% at the start of the year.
Sale proceeds used for debt repayment and buybacks
Crown Castle received $8.4 billion in net proceeds from the sale of its small cell and fiber businesses. Patel said the company used those proceeds to repurchase $1 billion of shares and repay more than $7 billion of debt, consistent with its capital allocation framework.
The company completed the $1 billion share repurchase program during the second quarter at an average price of $88.66 per share, retiring more than 11 million shares and reducing its annual dividend obligation by $47 million.
Since the prior quarter, Crown Castle repaid approximately $7.2 billion in debt, including about $5 billion of floating-rate debt across its commercial paper program, revolving credit facility and term loan. The company also repurchased $500 million of debt in the open market and repaid $750 million of unsecured notes due June 15 and $1 billion of unsecured notes due July 15.
Crown Castle ended the quarter with leverage of 6.3 times net debt to EBITDA, within its target investment-grade range of 6.0 to 6.5 times. The company also reduced the capacity of its revolving credit facility from $7 billion to $4.5 billion following the sale transaction.
DISH bankruptcy and escrow account remain key issues
Hillabrant said Crown Castle made progress during the quarter toward recovering payments owed under its original DISH agreement. In May, the Federal Communications Commission approved EchoStar spectrum sale transactions with AT&T and SpaceX, but made the transactions contingent on the creation of a $2.4 billion escrow account for vendors.
Hillabrant said Crown Castle will pursue its $3.5 billion contractual claim in bankruptcy court after DISH Wireless filed for bankruptcy. He said the escrow account is intended to satisfy network-related obligations, including certain infrastructure claims, and is not subject to the normal bankruptcy estate waterfall.
During the question-and-answer portion of the call, Hillabrant said the escrow funding is tied to the closing of the AT&T transaction. He said it is too early to estimate Crown Castle’s potential recovery because the number of claimants and the resolution process remain uncertain.
Asked about DISH equipment on Crown Castle towers, Hillabrant said ownership will be addressed as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. “As far as we’ve seen, they’ve abandoned it and although we’ve requested for them to take it down, have not acted to this point,” he said.
Management points to edge computing, data growth and spectrum
Hillabrant said Crown Castle sees multiple long-term demand drivers, including edge compute infrastructure, mobile data growth and new spectrum availability. He said the company has initiated several trials with edge data center providers and is seeing interest in using its tower portfolio for distributed compute deployments.
He said Crown Castle’s sites have existing power and broadband connectivity and can support “move-in-ready” deployments requiring less than 0.2 megawatts. The company is seeing interest from businesses looking to support inference workloads and applications such as cybersecurity, fraud detection and real-time data processing.
Hillabrant also cited Ericsson projections that U.S. mobile data consumption per smartphone will more than double over the next five years, from 25 gigabits to 52 gigabits per month. He said growth will be driven in part by AI-enabled applications and increased uplink traffic from devices transmitting video, sensor and telemetry data to the cloud.
The company also pointed to additional spectrum coming to market. Hillabrant said the FCC has described a pipeline of at least 800 megahertz of additional spectrum expected to be made available for commercial wireless use over the coming years, with plans to auction at least 165 megahertz between 2026 and 2027.
Services activity weakens, but leasing guidance unchanged
In response to analyst questions, Hillabrant said lower services activity does not translate directly into lower leasing activity. Crown Castle maintained its leasing guidance range of $60 million to $70 million.
Hillabrant said the services slowdown reflects broader industry conditions, including leadership and strategy changes among wireless customers and slower decision-making. He said the company is not looking to exit the services business and continues to evaluate whether it should expand certain offerings again, including construction-related services, if the economics make sense.
Management also discussed Crown Castle’s ongoing transformation effort, including ground lease buyouts, systems investments, automation and process improvements. Patel said the company expects to expand EBITDA margins by a couple hundred basis points over the next year, driven by structural cost reductions and productivity improvements.
Hillabrant said the company remains focused on operational changes that improve cycle times and customer experience, adding that Crown Castle aims to “win 100% of the jump balls” with customers.
About Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI)
Crown Castle is a U.S.-focused communications infrastructure company organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns, operates and leases shared wireless infrastructure. Its primary business consists of providing tower-based site leases, small cell networks and fiber solutions that support mobile voice and data transmission for wireless carriers, cable companies and other enterprise customers. The company’s assets are positioned to enable network coverage and capacity, including the densification projects associated with 4G LTE and 5G deployments.
Its product and service offerings include ground-based tower sites that host multiple wireless operators, distributed small cell nodes and associated fiber backhaul used to connect sites into carrier networks, and site development and maintenance services.
