Crown Castle reports Q4 AFFO $1.80, consensus $1.82

Reports Q4 revenue $1.6B, consensus $1.63B. “Together with our Board of Directors, I am excited to announce that we have concluded the strategic review of our Fiber segment with an agreement to sell our small cells and fiber solutions businesses for $8.5 billion,” stated Steven Moskowitz, CEO of Crown Castle (CCI). “We are also pleased to report that we were able to deliver solid full year 2024 results while conducting the strategic review, highlighted by 4.5% tower organic growth(a) as we remained focused on delivering for our customers. In 2025, we expect a consistent level of activity with organic growth(a) of 4.5% in towers, excluding the impact of Sprint consolidation churn, and anticipate lease and amendment applications to increase year-over-year as our customers continue to add capacity to their 5G networks to meet the persistent growth in mobile data demand in the U.S. We believe a focused, pure-play U.S. tower business will be uniquely well positioned to benefit from the anticipated consistent growth in mobile data demand as we plan to continue to unlock additional value by pursuing initiatives that enhance customer service, revenue growth, capital discipline, and operational excellence. To increase free cash flow generation and financial flexibility, we are updating our capital allocation framework, which is anticipated to result in a reduction to our annualized dividend to approximately $4.25 per share in the second quarter of 2025, and the expected implementation of an approximately $3.0 billion share repurchase program following the closing of the transaction(b). We believe this capital allocation framework can provide an attractive combination of near-term capital return, flexible share repurchases, and long-term financial flexibility to pursue growth opportunities in the future.”