Crown Castle Q2 2026: net income down 68%, AFFO per share up 11%
Crown Castle's second quarter was its first as a pure-play US tower company, and the headline numbers point in opposite directions. Reported net income fell to $94 million from $291 million, while AFFO per share rose 11% to $1.13 and management nudged full-year AFFO guidance higher. The view is Neutral: organic tower growth is real, but reported revenue is shrinking, leverage is heavy, and the filing's own revenue lines do not reconcile.
1 · Expected vs. Actual
Free preview belowGAAP diluted EPS was $0.22, down 67% from $0.67, while non-GAAP AFFO per share was $1.13, up 11% from $1.02. The gap is mostly the $205 million loss from discontinued operations tied to the Fiber Business sale. The consensus estimate of $0.3875 sits between those two figures, so whether this was a miss depends on which basis you compare.
The structured revenue field reads $41 million against $1.008 billion a year earlier, but the filing itself reports site rental revenues of $967 million, down 4.1%. The listed segments sum to $967 million, so the $41 million figure looks like an extraction error rather than a collapse. Excluding DISH terminations and Sprint cancellations, organic growth was 4.2%, up from 3.7% a year earlier.
Full-year 2026 site rental revenue guidance is $3.855 billion at the midpoint with a 0.6% tolerance, roughly $3.833 billion to $3.878 billion. That is $5 million above the previous midpoint of $3.850 billion, while AFFO guidance moves to a $1.975 billion midpoint and $4.59 per share. The guidance history table mixes a $4.0295 billion guide with a $53 million follow-up actual, so it is not a usable accuracy check.
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Figures on this page come from the company's original SEC filings. The analysis is generated automatically and checked against validation rules, but may still contain errors or omissions. Not investment advice. · Generated 2026-09-17
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