Crown Castle reported revenue of $968 million for the fourth quarter and $3.69 billion for all of 2014. Site rental revenue for 2014 was $3.01 billion, and the tower giant expects roughly the same level of site rental revenue for 2015 ($3.06 billion).
The company says it expects continued strong investment in infrastructure from all four of the leading US carriers. Despite acquisitions and price wars, Crown Castle is confident that the big four will continue to upgrade and enhance their networks to meet growing consumer demand. CEO Ben Moreland told investors this week that the average U.S. smartphone user now consumes 2 gigabytes of data annually, versus 1 gigabyte annually just a year ago.
“What took six years to build up to, starting with the original iPhone, has taken just one year to double, given today’s devices and applications,” said Moreland.
Crown Castle has completed the integration of the 9,700 towers it acquired from AT&T, bringing its total portfolio to 40,000 towers. Moreland said that the towers his company acquired from AT&T and T-Mobile US together represent 40% of its total portfolio. He said Crown’s legacy assets yield approximately 15% on invested capital, and Moreland expects the AT&T and T-Mobile towers to come to that level over time.
Moreland said that Crown Castle now has 14,000 small cells on air or under construction, and that to date Verizon has driven most of his company’s small cell activity. But he said that Crown sees “increased interest from other carriers to add small cell nodes across our fiber assets.” The company says it now controls 7,000 miles of fiber.
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