Report Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2026, before market open (press release ~7:00 a.m. ET) | Call: 8:30 a.m. ET
| Consensus AFFO/share | ~$2.71 (+4.2% y/y) |
| Consensus revenue | ~$2.70–2.71B (+3.1% y/y) |
| FY2026 guidance (AFFO/share) | $10.90–$11.07 |
| Stock price (7/27/26) | ~$166.77 |
| 52-week range context | Down from ~$224 a year ago (July 2025) |
| Dividend yield | ~4.1–4.3% |
| Net leverage | 4.9x (lowest in tower peer group) |
Analysts head into the print looking for continued AFFO growth on top of easy comps, with the Zacks consensus estimate calling for quarterly AFFO per share of $2.71, a 4.2% year-over-year increase, and revenues of roughly $2.71 billion, up 3.1% from the year-ago period.
AMT's Q1 2026 print set a high bar: the company reported AFFO of $2.84 per share, comfortably beating the Street's roughly $2.50–$2.69 estimate, with revenue of $2.74 billion also topping forecasts. Management responded by raising full-year guidance across the board — property revenue, Adjusted EBITDA and AFFO/share were all lifted, primarily on FX tailwinds (~$110M) and accelerated non-cash straight-line revenue from Oi in Brazil (~$35M). Full-year AFFO/share guidance now sits at $10.90–$11.07, implying roughly 2% reported growth (or ~5% on an FX-neutral, DISH-normalized basis).
Underlying the headline beat, growth was more nuanced: consolidated organic tenant billings growth (OTBG) was about 2% (or ~4% excluding one-time DISH-related churn), with the U.S. & Canada segment roughly flat-to-up-1% (masking ~5% growth ex-DISH), Africa & APAC up double digits (~11%), Europe up ~4%, and Latin America down ~2% on elevated Brazil churn. Data center (CoreSite) property revenue grew ~17% on a cash basis, and management flagged an inflection in interconnection activity as a key emerging driver of margin and durability at CoreSite.
Investors should expect Q2 organic growth trends to broadly mirror this pattern: modest U.S. tower growth (masked by DISH churn), strong Africa/APAC, solid Europe, negative-but-troughing Latin America, and continued double-digit CoreSite growth (full-year data center guidance stands at ~13%).
This is arguably the most important storyline that has developed since the Q1 call. On the April call, management reiterated that DISH-related churn (~4 points of headwind to consolidated OTBG, ~$400bps to AFFO/share growth) had already been fully "derisked" out of guidance, and that any resolution would represent pure upside. CEO Steve Vondran told analysts the company's contract was enforceable and litigation was ongoing, but declined to give specifics.
Since then, the situation has escalated materially: - In early June, American Tower terminated its Strategic Collocation Agreement and related agreements with DISH Wireless, effective June 2, 2026, following DISH's payment default, while the company said it expects no incremental impact to 2026 results. - DISH Wireless subsequently entered bankruptcy proceedings, and tower companies have become aggressive creditors in that process — Crown Castle is seeking roughly $3.5 billion and American Tower an estimated $2 billion in claims for unpaid leases and contracts, with combined tower-industry claims cited around $5.5 billion. - A bankruptcy judge has repeatedly pushed back DISH's preferred fast-track timeline, ruling in mid-July that tower creditors are entitled to conduct discovery before any asset-auction procedures are approved, while DISH is reportedly proposing an August 10 bid deadline, an August 12 auction, and an August 17 approval hearing for its remaining network assets.
For Q2, the key questions are: (1) has any incremental churn/impact materialized beyond what's baked into guidance, (2) what is management's updated view on recovery prospects from the $2.4 billion FCC-mandated escrow set aside from the EchoStar spectrum sale, and (3) how does the accelerating bankruptcy timeline (with key dates in August) affect the cadence of any potential settlement or recovery. Given AMT has already stripped DISH from its base-case guidance, any resolution remains a call option to the upside, but the litigation overhang and headline risk are likely to dominate Q&A.
CoreSite remains the highest-growth, highest-multiple-worthy piece of the portfolio, and management has been increasingly vocal about its strategic importance. On the Q1 call, CEO Vondran noted this quarter marked a clear inflection in interconnection activity, enhancing both the profitability of the platform and the long-term durability of customer relationships, driven by hybrid/multi-cloud deployments and accelerating AI-driven inferencing workloads. Management also disclosed it had increased land/power held for future data-center development by roughly 200 megawatts and continues to view CoreSite as a long-term, strategically important part of the portfolio rather than a candidate for divestiture, while flagging "edge" computing (AI-RAN, distributed inferencing) as a longer-duration option value. Watch for: continued double-digit cash revenue growth, backlog/pre-leasing commentary, and any update on new NIMBY-related permitting friction that management acknowledged is a growing but so-far-manageable headwind for data center construction nationally.
AMT ended Q1 with net leverage of 4.9x — which management describes as the lowest leverage and highest credit rating in its peer group — after amending credit facilities in May to extend maturities and enhance financial flexibility. The company repurchased about $184 million of stock in Q1 (plus $19 million more through late April), bringing cumulative buybacks since the program restarted in Q4 2025 to over $565 million, alongside a dividend raised 5.3% year-over-year to $1.79/share. On M&A, management has repeatedly signaled discipline — no change to its stated preference for U.S./developed-market scale deals, continued patience in Europe, and a deliberate strategy to keep emerging markets a smaller share of the portfolio despite their higher growth rates. Watch for commentary on the stalled SBA Communications take-private process (reports indicate KKR/Brookfield talks stalled over valuation), since public/private multiple dislocation in the tower sector remains a recurring investor question for AMT's own capital-return calculus.
The setup into this print is complicated by a more hawkish Federal Reserve. Under new Chair Kevin Warsh, the Fed has held its policy rate at 3.50%–3.75% amid inflation running around 3.5% year-over-year — still well above target — and a recent global bond selloff has pushed some yields to multi-year highs, with unusually elevated market uncertainty about a potential rate hike. As a long-duration, capital-intensive REIT, AMT's valuation is sensitive to this rate backdrop, which helps explain why the stock has underperformed materially over the past year even as fundamentals (AFFO growth, CoreSite momentum, capital discipline) have generally tracked or beaten plan — AMT shares have fallen from roughly $224 last July to under $167 today, a decline of about 25%, even as the S&P 500 has risen strongly over the same period. That dynamic has also pushed valuation down to roughly 15.3–15.4x forward AFFO with a dividend yield near 4.1–4.3%, levels several sell-side and independent research shops have flagged as below historical/sector norms and potentially undervalued.
Coverage remains broadly constructive: as of late July, one analyst rates AMT Strong Buy, sixteen rate it Buy, and four rate it Hold, with price targets recently including Raymond James ($240, Strong Buy), Jefferies ($210, Buy), Truist ($208, Buy), RBC (upgraded to Outperform, $205, in late June) and Barclays on the more cautious end (Equal Weight, $195). Notably, Zacks' proprietary model does not currently point to a high probability of an AFFO beat this quarter (Earnings ESP of 0.00%, Zacks Rank #3/Hold), a contrast to AMT's recent track record of topping AFFO estimates in three of the last four quarters.
Given depressed valuation, high dividend yield, and generally durable fundamentals, the setup favors a "steady execution plus DISH clarity" outcome as the bull case, while a hawkish Fed and unresolved bankruptcy litigation remain the key overhangs keeping sentiment cautious into the print.