Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) raised its full-year 2026 outlook after reporting third-quarter results that reflected continued organic tower leasing growth, operating-cost reductions and a customer agreement that extended lease terms on a subset of sites.
President and Chief Executive Officer Chris Hillabrant said the company has made progress during the past year in simplifying its operations after selling its small-cell and fiber businesses, with the goal of operating as a pure-play U.S. tower company. The company cited $65 million of annualized run-rate operating cost savings from actions taken at the beginning of the year.
“We have taken decisive steps to simplify the business, strengthen our operating model, and build the right leadership team,” Hillabrant said. “This progress allowed us to increase our full year 2026 guidance.”
Third-Quarter Growth and Updated Outlook
Chief Financial Officer Sunit Patel said third-quarter organic growth, excluding Sprint cancellations and DISH terminations, was $35 million, or 3.5%. Organic growth was 3.8% when excluding DISH revenue from prior-year site-rental billings.
That growth was offset by $5 million of Sprint cancellations, $61 million of DISH terminations and a $17 million reduction in non-cash straight-line revenue and amortization of prepaid rent. Services margin was $15 million in the third quarter, with Crown Castle expecting improvement in the fourth quarter.
The company increased its full-year 2026 outlook by:
- $20 million for site-rental revenue;
- $25 million for adjusted EBITDA; and
- $5 million for adjusted funds from operations, or AFFO.
The updated outlook includes $20 million in additional straight-line revenue related to contractual term extensions from a customer agreement completed during the quarter, as well as a $5 million reduction in site-rental operating costs. Excluding the customer transaction, full-year adjusted EBITDA and AFFO guidance each increased by $5 million, Patel said.
Crown Castle maintained its forecast for 2026 organic growth, excluding Sprint cancellations and DISH terminations, at $135 million, or 3.4% at the midpoint. The company expects core leasing activity of $60 million to $70 million for the year but now expects to finish toward the lower end of that range, citing timing rather than a change in underlying demand.
Patel said Crown Castle continues to expect 2026 to be the low point for organic growth. The company also reiterated its expectation for more than 200 basis points of margin expansion by 2030 relative to 2026.
Customer Agreement and Ground Lease Program
During the quarter, Crown Castle paid $275 million to acquire a residual economic interest in a subset of tower sites, extend a customer’s lease terms for those sites and limit long-term churn across that part of its portfolio. Executives described the arrangement as the resolution of a long-standing commercial issue, rather than a purchase of future lease options.
Patel said the transaction is expected to increase site-rental billings by nearly $4 million in the fourth quarter, or $16 million on an annualized basis. It also is expected to reduce prepaid-rent amortization by $2 million in the fourth quarter, or $8 million annually. Excluding prepaid-rent amortization, the agreement is expected to be approximately $4 million accretive to annualized AFFO.
The term extension is expected to generate an additional $20 million of straight-line revenue in the fourth quarter. Crown Castle did not disclose the specific length of the extension or its escalator terms.
The company also increased discretionary capital expenditure guidance by $40 million to $240 million, reflecting a higher expected volume of ground lease buyouts. Crown Castle expects to purchase more than 400 ground leases in 2026, more than twice the number completed in 2025. Hillabrant said owning land beneath towers can improve margins and provide greater operational control.
Network Demand, Spectrum and DISH
Executives pointed to ongoing mobile data growth, customer spectrum acquisitions and future spectrum auctions as supportive factors for tower demand. Hillabrant cited AT&T’s acquisition of 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum, Verizon’s AWS-3 license acquisition, and SpaceX’s acquisition of AWS-4, H Block and 800 MHz spectrum.
Hillabrant said SpaceX’s stated terrestrial network ambitions could potentially create tower leasing demand directly or encourage existing network operators to invest further in their networks. However, he said the pace and scale of any deployment would depend on SpaceX’s eventual network design.
Crown Castle has approximately 40,000 sites and said it had more than 12,000 installed DISH sites before DISH halted its deployment. Patel said some equipment from DISH remains on tower sites after the customer abandoned it. The company said bankruptcy-court proceedings involving DISH-related matters were paused while parties participated in court-ordered mediation through early November.
Edge Compute and Balance Sheet
Crown Castle said it has deployed more than 100 edge-compute sites and is conducting several concurrent trials. The company is evaluating whether the opportunity can scale into a meaningful business, with Hillabrant saying a potential long-term opportunity would need to reach hundreds or thousands of locations.
The company has identified roughly 5,000 existing structures or shelters at tower sites that could potentially support edge customers. In a review of 25 locations, Crown Castle found the potential to add up to 100 megawatts of aggregate power, which it said could be delivered in roughly nine to 11 months with limited capital requirements from the company.
At quarter-end, Crown Castle had 97% fixed-rate debt, a weighted average debt maturity of seven years and leverage of 6.5 times net debt to last-quarter annualized adjusted EBITDA. Patel said leverage would be 6.3 times when accounting for incremental straight-line revenue from term extensions beginning in the fourth quarter.
About Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI)
Crown Castle Inc (NYSE: CCI) is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates and leases communications infrastructure in the United States. Its assets support wireless carriers, broadcasters, government agencies and other communications providers by enabling the transmission of voice, data and video services.
The company’s infrastructure has historically included approximately 40,000 cell towers, about 90,000 route miles of fiber and a large portfolio of small-cell installations.
