SBA Communications (SBAC) FY2025 results: revenue $2.8 billion, up 5.1% on the year

SBA Communications owns and operates wireless communications infrastructure: tower structures, rooftops and other structures that hold the antennas mobile networks run on. It rents space on them to the carriers. It owned 46,328 towers at the end of 2025, mainly in the United States and its territories, with the rest in South America, Central America and Africa.

Two businesses, and one of them is almost everything

Site leasing contributed 97.9 percent of total segment operating profit in 2025, and the filing says it has been 97.4 percent or more for each of the past three years. The other line, site development, helps carriers build and maintain their own networks and is run in the United States only.

Site leasing is split into two reportable segments, domestic and international. Carriers sign either an individual lease for one site or a master lease agreement setting the terms that apply across many sites, with each site still usually carrying its own agreement for pricing and site-specific terms. SBA also manages rooftop and tower sites owned by other property owners under contract.

Domestic

17,394 sites in the United States and its territories at the end of 2025. Those sites produced 72.6 percent of total site leasing revenue, mainly from T-Mobile, AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless. Tenant leases generally run five to ten years initially with multiple renewals at the tenant's option and specific annual rent increases written in, including through the renewal periods. The ground leases and other property interests underneath generally run five years or more initially with multiple renewals at SBA's own option and their own annual increases. No US state or territory accounted for more than 10 percent of the tower portfolio by count or more than 10 percent of total revenues.

International

28,934 sites across 12 international markets at the end of 2025. Brazil holds about 30 percent of total towers and Guatemala about 10 percent, with no other country above 5 percent. The tenants are all the major carriers in each of those countries. Initial lease terms run five to fifteen years, and the increases are either fixed, linked to an inflation index, or a combination of the two. International leases may also pass through charges such as ground rent, utilities, property taxes and fuel.

Currency exposure differs by country, and the filing is specific about it. In Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama substantially all revenue, expenses and capital expenditure are in US dollars, with local currency obligations limited mainly to permits and local fees, utilities and taxes. In Brazil, Chile and South Africa substantially all of it is in local currency. In Costa Rica, Peru and Tanzania it is a mix.

What changed in the year

SBA bought over 7,000 sites from Millicom across Central America, and as part of that deal holds a seven-year exclusive right to build up to 2,500 build-to-suit sites in the region, each with an initial lease term of 15 years. In the other direction, during 2025 it sold all of its towers and ended operations in both the Philippines and Colombia, and sold substantially all of its operations in Canada.

How new towers get built

Under build-to-suit arrangements SBA constructs a tower at a location the carrier has identified, but keeps ownership of the structure and the exclusive right to add further tenants to it. It also builds at locations it chooses itself, using what it knows about carrier network requirements, and generally has at least one signed tenant lease in place on the day a new tower is finished.

The number that drives the model

At the end of 2025 SBA had an average of 1.8 tenants per site. Most towers were built to hold several tenants, and the company assesses remaining capacity by tower height and type, wind loading, environmental conditions, the equipment already mounted and local zoning and permitting rules. It states that filling that spare structural capacity generates additional lease revenue at low incremental cost.

Site development

Conducted only in the United States, and offered both at SBA's own towers and at towers owned by others, through regional, market and project offices. The services run from network pre-design, site audits and identifying possible locations, through leasing the location and obtaining zoning approvals and permits, to construction, antenna installation, and radio equipment installation, commissioning and maintenance.

From SBA Communications' annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing

Written from the 10-K filed 27 February 2026: read the full 10-K.