Houston, Texas-based Crown Castle Inc. (CCI) is a REIT company, engaging in the provision of access to shared communications infrastructure. It operates through Towers, Fiber, and Other segments. With a market cap of $44.3 billion, Crown Castle’s operations span all of the top 100 markets across various U.S. states.
Companies worth $10 billion or more are generally described as "large-cap stocks," Crown Castle fits this bill perfectly. Given the company’s extensive network and widespread operations across the country, its valuation above this mark is not surprising. It currently owns over 40,000 towers, approximately 115,000 small cells on air or under contract and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber.
Despite its strengths, the stock has slipped 15.8% from its 52-week high of $120.92 achieved on Sept. 16. CCI stock prices have declined 12.3% over the past three months, underperforming the Nasdaq Composite’s ($NASX) 19% surge during the same time frame.
Over the longer term, Crown Castle’s performance looks even grimmer. CCI has plummeted 11.6% on a YTD basis and over 13% in the past 52 weeks, lagging behind NASX’s 32.3% gains in 2024 and 40.4% returns over the past year.
To confirm the bearish trend, CCI has traded below its 50-day moving average since early October and below its 200-day moving average since early November with some fluctuations.
Crown Castle’s underperformance is primarily attributable to its declining year-to-date revenues and earnings in 2024. CCI stock prices dropped 3.4% in the trading session after the release of its Q3 results on Oct. 16 as the company reduced its full-year net income guidance due to the cancellation of contracts for 7,000 greenfield small cell nodes. This cancellation is expected to result in a $125 million to $150 million asset write-down charge in Q4. Meanwhile, the company’s net revenues experienced a marginal decline to $1.65 billion, due to a decrease in services and other revenues.
On a positive note, CCI’s site rentals went up around 1% compared to the year-ago quarter to approximately $1.6 billion. And its adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) went up 4.4% year-over-year to $801 million. Meanwhile, its AFFO per share of $1.84 surpassed analysts’ estimates by 6.4%.
CCI has also underperformed its competitor American Tower Corporation’s (AMT) 4.1% decline on a YTD basis and a 1.7% drop over the past 52 weeks.
The stock has a consensus “Hold” rating among the 19 analysts covering it. CCI’s mean price target of $115.94 represents a 13.8% premium to current price levels.
