American Tower reported revenue of $1,954 million (+9.4 percent) and net income of $505 million (+33.9 percent) with adjusted EBITDA of $1,229 million (+12.2 percent) during the third quarter ended September 30, 2019.
American Tower said its operational and financial results were impacted by churn driven by carrier consolidation in India. The telecom tower company said consolidation will impact operational and financial results in the fourth quarter of 2019 and will result in a reduction in Indian contracted tenant revenue.
American Tower is expecting billings growth of 7-8 percent in Latin America and 8-9 percent in India for the year.
American Tower CEO Jim Taiclet said: “Our tenants are making significant investments in their networks as mobile data usage growth continues, and in the U.S., we are now seeing the early stages of 5G spending.”
American Tower will hold 92 percent stake in ATC Telecom Infrastructure by completing the redemption of the put shares in Q4 2019 for INR 24.8 billion or $350 million as of September 30, 2019.
American Tower also signed a new master lease agreement with AT&T Inc. in the U.S. The company’s third quarter 2019 results and revised full year 2019 outlook include the impacts of the MLA.
American Tower CEO said the global cell tower company expects 5G to be accompanied by significant deployments of new spectrum assets across the full range of low, mid, and high bands.
“We have already seen 600 megahertz low band spectrum selectively deployed on our towers. T-Mobile has stated that they expect 600 MHz to serve as a significant component of their 5G coverage plan across the country, and our portfolio of 41,000 U.S. site is positioned very well to support that deployment,” American Tower CEO said.
American Tower CEO said millimeter wave spectrum and small cells, which are part of debate on the quality aspects, will serve pedestrian hotspots and other predominately fix location applications in urban and dense urban areas. “Less
than 1 percent of our U.S. macro tower sites are located in areas with high enough population density to economically support such outdoor small cell arrays. The impact of macro tower sites from 5G millimeter wave spectrum deployments are expected initially to be minimal both from a risk and an opportunity perspective,” American Tower CEO said during an analyst call.
