American Tower Corporation AMT is scheduled to release second-quarter 2026 results on July 28, before the opening bell. The company’s quarterly results are expected to reflect year-over-year growth in revenues and adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) per share.
In the last reported quarter, American Tower posted an AFFO per share attributable to AMT common stockholders of $2.84, which beat the consensus estimate of $2.50. The quarterly results reflected a year-over-year rise in revenues, aided by revenue growth across its property operations segment.
Over the preceding four quarters, the company’s AFFO per share topped on three occasions and met once, the average beat being 5.81%. The graph below depicts this surprise history:
American Tower Corporation Price and EPS Surprise
American Tower Corporation price-eps-surprise | American Tower Corporation Quote
AMT: Factors at Play
American Tower’s second-quarter 2026 results are likely to benefit from rising mobile data usage, continued 5G deployment, fixed wireless access and carrier-led network densification. U.S. carriers are moving toward capacity expansion and network fill-in, which should support leasing and amendment activity. AI-enabled applications and increased video consumption may provide additional long-term demand for tower infrastructure.
CoreSite is expected to have remained a major growth driver, supported by hybrid cloud deployments, AI inferencing and stronger interconnection demand. Data center cash revenues grew 17% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, management maintained its full-year growth forecast of about 13%, indicating another quarter of double-digit growth, albeit potentially below the first quarter’s pace. However, DISH-related churn is likely to have weighed on reported U.S. tower growth.
Q2 Projections for AMT
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for operating revenues from the Total Property segment is pegged at $2.65 billion, which implies an uptick of 4.8% from the figure reported in the year-ago period.
The consensus estimate for operating revenues from the Data Centers segment is currently pegged at $294.7 million, calling for a 12.5% increase from the year-ago period.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for quarterly revenues stands at $2.71 billion, implying growth of 3.1% from the year-ago period’s reported figure.
American Tower’s activities during the soon-to-be-reported quarter have been inadequate to gain analysts’ confidence. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for quarterly AFFO per share has remained unchanged at $2.71 over the past three months. The figure implies a 4.2% jump from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.
What Our Quantitative Model Predicts for AMT
Our proven model does not conclusively predict a surprise in terms of AFFO per share for American Tower this season. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an AFFO beat, which is not the case here.
American Tower has an Earnings ESP of 0.00% and currently carries a Zacks Rank of 3. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.
Stocks That Warrant a Look
Here are two stocks from the broader REIT sector — Digital Realty Trust DLR and Cousins Properties CUZ — you may want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to report an AFFO beat this quarter.
Digital Realty is slated to report quarterly numbers on July 23. DLR has an Earnings ESP of +2.30% and a Zacks Rank of 3 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Cousins is slated to report quarterly numbers on July 30. CUZ has an Earnings ESP of +0.45% and a Zacks Rank of 3 at present.
Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO), a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.
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American Tower Corporation (AMT): Free Stock Analysis Report
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).