American Tower Corporation

What does American Tower own?
American Tower owns about 150,000 multitenant communications sites in more than 20 countries plus 30 CoreSite data centers in 11 US markets. Its assets are the real estate itself; tenants own the antennas and equipment placed on the structures.

Is American Tower publicly traded?
Yes. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker AMT and is a member of the S&P 500. It has operated as a REIT since January 2012, which requires paying out most taxable income as dividends.

When was American Tower founded?
The tower business began in 1995 inside American Radio Systems and became an independent public company in 1998, listing on the NYSE in 1999.

Who owns American Tower?
Public shareholders own it. Institutional investors and index funds hold most shares, and no individual or family controls the company. Steven Vondran has been CEO since February 2024.

What is American Tower's market position?
It is the largest independent multitenant tower company globally by site count, ahead of SBA Communications, Crown Castle, and Cellnex. Its CoreSite unit is a leading US interconnection data center provider.

How does American Tower make money?
Carriers pay monthly rent under long-term leases, typically 5 to 10 years with roughly 3% annual escalators in the US. Adding tenants to existing towers is nearly pure margin, so profitability scales with the number of tenants per site.

American Tower began in 1995 as the tower unit of American Radio Systems, a Boston broadcasting company run by Steven Dodge. When American Radio merged with CBS in 1998, the tower operation was spun off as an independent company named American Tower Corporation. It went public on the NYSE in 1999 under ticker AMT.

Through the 2000s the company grew by buying and building towers as wireless networks expanded from voice to data. International expansion started in Mexico and Brazil and accelerated through the 2010s. The 2013 purchase of Global Tower Partners for approximately $4.8 billion added US sites and a Costa Rica platform. In 2015 the company bought Eaton Towers, establishing a major African presence, and leased rights to approximately 11,500 Verizon towers in a transaction valued near $5 billion.

American Tower elected REIT status effective January 1, 2012, aligning its structure with its real estate economics and committing to dividend distributions.

Two 2021 deals redefined the company at its largest scale. It acquired Telxius Telecom's European and Latin American tower division from Telefonica for approximately $9.4 billion, adding about 31,000 sites concentrated in Spain, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Argentina. Weeks later it announced the CoreSite Realty acquisition for approximately $10.1 billion, an entry into interconnection-focused US data centers that closed in December 2021.

In 2024 the company exited India, selling ATC Telecom Infrastructure Private Limited to Brookfield's Data Infrastructure Trust for approximately $2.5 billion, ending a chapter that had produced years of receivables stress tied to carrier Vodafone Idea. Steven Vondran, previously head of the US tower division, became CEO in February 2024.

FY2025 revenue was $10.6 billion, up 5.1%, with attributable AFFO of $5.04 billion. In Q3 2026, reported October 27, 2026, revenue reached $2.79 billion and management raised its full-year outlook for the third time, with CoreSite cash revenue growing 16.3% on data center demand.

The company's most material environmental work sits in its off-grid markets. In Africa, where many sites depend on diesel generation, American Tower has invested in solar and battery hybrid systems to cut fuel consumption and operating cost simultaneously. It publishes annual sustainability reporting covering energy, emissions, and governance, and reports continued reduction in diesel consumption per site across its African portfolio.

As a REIT rather than a consumer company, certifications such as B Corp do not apply. Governance follows standard investment-grade REIT norms, with a majority-independent board and annual say-on-pay votes.

The company's most publicized financial issue was its India business. Carrier consolidation left Vodafone Idea, a major tenant, financially distressed, forcing American Tower to write down receivables and ultimately exit the market entirely in the 2024 sale to Brookfield, accepting a meaningful loss relative to invested capital.

In 2023 the company disclosed that it had identified material weaknesses in internal controls related to accounting at its Africa operations, which led to restatements and a sharp one-day stock decline. Management remediated the controls and no regulatory enforcement followed.

Zoning disputes over new tower construction arise periodically in US municipalities, and in some markets regulators have debated infrastructure-sharing mandates that could affect tenancy economics, though none has materially altered the business model to date.