Crown Castle Q3 FY2026: AFFO per share up 11%, revenue still shrinking
Crown Castle delivered the quarter its optimists wanted on cash flow and the one its skeptics expected on revenue: AFFO per share rose 11.0% to $1.24 and full-year Adjusted EBITDA guidance went up $25 million, while site rental revenue fell 4.5% on DISH terminations. Read the quarter through AFFO and organic growth, not reported revenue, and treat the guidance raise as a nudge rather than a turn.
1 · Expected vs. Actual
Free preview belowGAAP diluted EPS was $0.67, down from $0.74 a year ago and just under the $0.6933 consensus. The REIT's cash measure, AFFO per share, rose to $1.24 from $1.12. Net income of $283 million fell 12.4%, and the AFFO gain owed more to lower interest expense and fewer shares than to operations.
Site rental revenue, the core line, fell 4.5% to $966 million from $1,012 million, with a $61 million hit from DISH terminations and $5 million from Sprint cancellations. Organic contribution adjusted for those items was $35 million, or 3.5%, down from 3.9% a year earlier. Total revenue was $995 million including $29 million of services and other; the machine-readable revenue tag of $29 million in the filing is only the services line, so $995 million is the number used here.
Management raised full-year 2026 site rental revenue by $20 million to a $3.85 billion to $3.90 billion range and lifted the Adjusted EBITDA midpoint by $25 million to $2.715 billion. AFFO guidance moved up only $5 million, to $1.955 billion to $2.005 billion, or $4.54 to $4.66 per share. The net income midpoint rose $25 million to $895 million, but that line is distorted by the Fiber Business now sitting in discontinued operations.
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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 2026-11-05
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