American Tower Increases Infrastructure Investment on Key Market Drivers
American Tower (NYSE: AMT) is still the largest independent multinational tower company in the world, according to Inside Towers Intelligence. At the end of 1Q26, the company reported a total of 148,950 towers across 22 countries including the U.S & Canada, Europe, Africa & APAC, and Latin America. Note that the company’s base U.S. & Canada region accounted for 41,770 towers or 28 percent of the total while generating 47 percent of $1.252 billion total property leasing revenues for the quarter.
Outside of North America, Latin America, its largest market by tower count, accounted for 46,622 towers and 18 percent of property revenues for the quarter. Brazil is the company’s largest market in Latam with 22,377 towers. During the quarter, American Tower built 325 towers, mainly in Africa & APAC and Europe, acquired 27 towers, primarily in Europe and sold or decommissioned 226 sites, mainly in LATAM with the balance on Africa & APAC and U.S.& Canada.
The company expects most of its growth from developed markets such as the U.S. & Canada, and Europe. American Tower forecasts steady revenue increases, with about four percent organic tenant billing growth, excluding DISH-related effects, and strong double-digit gains from its CoreSite data centers.
Steven Vondran, American Tower President, CEO & Director expects rising mobile data usage from increased smartphone adoption, 5G growth, fixed wireless access, and broader enterprise applications. He forecasts that U.S. mobile data traffic will double in five years, demanding more network capacity. Vondran adds that early 6G trends point to denser networks, greater distributed computing, and higher throughput, that will drive more activity for American Tower’s portfolio.
Vondran anticipates that AI applications will significantly increase demands on wireless networks, requiring higher throughput and greater complexity. These developments favor macro towers, as terrestrial wireless networks are the only scalable option. He says that towers offer efficient, cost-effective, and flexible network capacity, and advantages expected to grow stronger over time.
In European markets, the company expects mobile data traffic to more than double by the end of the decade, which is expected to drive significant amendment and colocation activity.
In emerging markets, like Africa & APAC, American Tower anticipates mobile data traffic nearly tripling by the end of the decade, providing a long runway for growth as these less mature markets develop. Vondran says, “Over the long term, we continue to expect our international markets and our emerging markets in particular, to grow faster than the U.S.”
For 2026, American Tower expects to keep its growth capital plan unchanged, with about 85 percent of $1.8 billion in allocated discretionary capex, up from $1.2 billion invested in 2025, to be spent in developed markets. This includes over $700 million for data center investments, land purchases under tower sites, and building more than 700 new towers in Europe.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
