Key Takeaways
- Crown Castle stock rose 6% today after SpaceX picked Qualcomm to supply base stations for Starlink Mobile’s US 5G network, starting in 2027.
- Starlink Mobile will need towers, and a fourth carrier could fill the hole DISH left in Crown Castle’s leasing.
- SBA Communications and American Tower rose too, but no SpaceX lease has been signed yet.
- The stock now trades at about its five-year average on forward AFFO.
Crown Castle (CCI) stock jumped 6% today after SpaceX (SPCX) picked Qualcomm to supply the base stations for Starlink Mobile’s 5G network. Fellow tower owners SBA Communications (SBAC) rose 6% and American Tower (AMT) gained 4%.
Qualcomm said the deal covers tens of thousands of sites, starting in 2027. Ookla’s lead industry analyst, Mike Dano, said the deal “reinforces the likelihood that Starlink Mobile could become a credible fourth nationwide mobile network provider in the U.S.”
Those base stations have to go somewhere. It’s the third SpaceX-driven jump in a month, after an $8 billion spectrum buy and reported talks for 80,000 cell sites.
A fourth carrier would fill DISH’s hole
DISH’s lease terminations took $61 million out of Crown Castle’s third-quarter site rental billings.
Analysts expect total revenue to slip this year and barely recover by 2028:
Those estimates don’t include a SpaceX lease. CFO Sunit Patel said on the third-quarter call that he expects 2026 to be the low point for organic growth.
SBA and American Tower want in too
SBA’s domestic site leasing revenue fell 3.4% in the third quarter, to $454.4 million. CEO Brendan Cavanagh said Monday that SBA is “seeing new opportunities from satellite and edge compute providers that value the reach and infrastructure of our portfolio.” Starlink Mobile would be exactly that kind of tenant.
American Tower’s organic tenant billings grew just 1.1% in the third quarter, while cash revenue at its CoreSite data centers grew 16.3%. With towers around the world, American Tower would gain less from a new US carrier than Crown Castle.
TIKR tracks 22 analysts on Crown Castle. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Crown Castle, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Crown Castle’s Analyst Ratings
The stock isn’t paying for SpaceX yet
Crown Castle traded at 18x forward AFFO at Monday’s close, just under its five-year average of 19x:
Today’s jump takes it to about that average, far below its 29x peak in late 2021.
Of course, nothing’s signed, and SpaceX could spread its sites across all three tower owners.
The way I see it, Crown Castle is still priced like a tower owner with no new carrier coming. A signed SpaceX lease would change that, so watch its fourth-quarter call early next year.
So what is Crown Castle stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what Crown Castle could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
