Cellnex Maintains Tower Leadership in Europe

Cellnex Telecom (MC: CLNX), based in Barcelona, remains the largest independent, multinational tower company in Europe, according to Inside Towers Intelligence. At the end of 1Q26, the company reported a portfolio of 112,513 telecom towers across 10 European countries, representing a three percent year-over-year increase. In addition, the company operates 2,029 broadcast towers, mainly in Spain.

Cellnex has deployed 16,228 distributed antenna system (DAS) nodes primarily in large venues such as football stadiums and arenas and in transportation hubs like railway stations and airports and along major transportation routes. The largest DAS deployments are in Italy, U.K., Poland and Spain. DAS deployments were up 24 percent YoY.

The company has commitments for another 8,430 build-to-suit sites through 2030. Cellnex’s largest commitments are in France where it has contracts for 2,810 BTS sites with Bouygues Telecom (OTCPK: BOUYY) and SFR. The company does not expect any changes to its planned construction activity even as Bouygues, Free-Iliad and Orange (OTC: ORANY) bid to acquire SFR, as Inside Towers reported. The company has BTS commitments for another 2,339 towers in Poland for Play and Polkemtel. Hutchison in Sweden has ordered another 1,588 sites and WindTre in Italy has contracted for 892 sites.

Tower revenues for the quarter were $939 million, up three percent YoY. Organic growth was up 5.3 percent driven by escalators and inflation colocation and BTS activity. Cellnex pointed out that annual escalators were indexed to local inflation rates in 65 percent of its leases while in the remaining 35 percent, escalators were set at fixed rates. Higher inflation rates across the continent is contributing that organic growth.

Cellnex reported total revenues for 1Q26 of $1.3 billion, up two percent YoY and operating profit of $179 million up 33 percent over $135 million reported in 1Q25.

For the full year, Cellnex is guiding to total revenue of $4.8 billion, up three percent YoY, Adjusted EBITDA of $4.1 billion, up five percent over $3.9 billion in 2025 and free cash flow of $762 million, an 89 percent increase from $410 million in 2025.

By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor