Who owns the world’s 4.4mn investible telecom towers and rooftops? What is a tower company and how have different business models evolved in different regions? Drawing upon TowerXchange’s exclusive and unique research, this article sizes and forecasts the future of this dynamic new US$300bn infrastructure asset class.
Once upon a time, telecom towers were depreciating assets, built to serve the needs of one MNO, occasionally (often reluctantly) shared on a site for site ‘swap’ basis. Even today, the management of over 1.4mn operator-captive towers is not a core, value creating business for those MNOs.
Almost 3mn towers have now been transferred from MNOs to tower companies (towercos), specialist telecommunications real estate sales and engineering firms that have professionalised the management of these assets, and added value by leasing up the space on those towers to multiple MNOs.
