AMT vs IHS: How American Tower Corporation and IHS Holding Compare (2026)

Same yardstick, side by side (as of August 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.

Reading it: IHS is the cheaper of the two on forward earnings, but cheaper is not the same as better. Pair the valuation with growth (how far the forward P/E sits below the trailing P/E) and risk (beta) before you decide.

The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. AMT and IHS share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.

This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined AMT and IHS exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

American Tower Corporation (NYSE: AMT), founded in 1995 and headquartered in Boston, is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates, and develops multitenant communications real estate. Its core business is leasing vertical space on wireless towers to mobile network operators, government agencies, and broadcasters under long-term contracts with annual escalators, generating 97% of 2025 revenue from property operations. Beyond towers, AMT owns CoreSite, a portfolio of 30 U.S. data centers offering colocation and interconnection services to enterprises, cloud providers, and network operators, which has become a fast-growing second revenue engine. The company manages nearly 150,000 communications sites across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, providing global scale that smaller peers cannot easily replicate.

Full AMT guide

IHS Holding Limited (NYSE: IHS) builds, owns and leases the physical infrastructure that mobile networks run on: steel towers, rooftop sites, the land under them, and, unusually for a tower company, the power systems that keep them running. Mobile operators sign long-dated Master Lease Agreements, typically 5 to 10 years with escalators, and IHS earns rent per tenant per site. The economics turn on colocation, meaning how many carriers hang equipment on a tower that has already been built and is already being powered. As of the first quarter of 2026 the portfolio stood at ~37,641 towers and ~54,854 tenants, a colocation rate of ~1.46x, plus ~45,298 lease amendments (the incremental equipment adds that carry high margin because the site cost is sunk). Africa is the centre of gravity, with Nigeria alone around 60% of revenue, and in emerging markets where grid supply is unreliable IHS also supplies diesel, batteries and increasingly solar and hybrid power, which is both a competitive moat and the reason its cost base is more volatile than a US tower REIT's.

Full IHS guide

Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.

• AMT drivers: 5G Densification and Mid-Band Upgrades; CoreSite and AI-Driven Data Center Demand.
• IHS drivers: The MTN take-private is the dominant variable; Deleveraging has been real and fast.

A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: The most immediate risk is customer concentration: in 2025, four carriers (T-Mobile at 18%, AT&T at 17%, Verizon at 14%, and Telefonica at 10%) collectively represented roughly 59% of total revenue, so any material lease dispute, consolidation event, or technology shift (such as carriers building private networks or relying on low-earth-orbit satellites) could disproportionately hurt results. For IHS, the single largest risk is that the MTN transaction does not close, because regulatory approval in Nigeria and other African markets is still outstanding and a break would return the shares to trading on fundamentals from a price set by a bid.

Growth-minded investors who believe the theme has years to run tend to accept the richer multiple for more upside; value-minded investors lean toward the cheaper forward earnings and steadier profile. Pick AMT if you believe its drivers more; IHS if you believe its. Many investors hold both, but since they share themes, that is a concentrated bet, not diversification. Decide deliberately and check overlap. For the full detail, see the AMT and IHS guides.

AMT. AMT's trailing P/E of approximately 27x is well below its own 3-year average of roughly 45x and its 10-year average of roughly 56x, reflecting both earnings normalization after a period of large one-time items and a broader re-rating of rate-sensitive REITs in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. For tower REITs, investors typically focus on AFFO per share rather than GAAP earnings, because the latter is heavily influenced by depreciation and one-time currency gains or losses. On that basis, FY 2025 delivered high-single-digit AFFO per share growth, and management's 2026 guidance projects continued quarterly revenue in the $2.67 billion to $2.77 billion range per quarter, suggesting mid-single-digit full-year growth if realized.

IHS. With a fixed cash price on the table and the shareholder vote already carried, conventional multiples carry less signal than usual: the shares trade against the ~$8.50 offer discounted for the time and probability of regulatory clearance. The fundamental figures still matter as the downside anchor if the deal were to lapse, and on that basis the business is growing revenue in the mid single digits at a ~64.6% adjusted EBITDA margin with leverage that has fallen roughly half a turn in a year. Second quarter 2026 results were scheduled for 11 August 2026, so the numbers above reflect the first quarter print released on 12 May 2026.

Headline figures (approximate, 2026-06-27): AMT shows revenue (q1 2026) ~$2.74 billion, revenue (fy 2024, most recent full year) ~$10.13 billion, adjusted ebitda (q1 2026) ~$1.84 billion (margin ~67%), affo per share (q1 2026) ~$2.84 (up ~3.3% year-over-year); IHS shows revenue (q1 2026, continuing ops) ~$415M, up ~6% YoY, adjusted ebitda / margin ~$269M / ~64.6%, adjusted levered free cash flow (q1 2026) ~$174M, total debt / cash ~$3.14B / ~$941M.

AMT and IHS are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined AMT and IHS exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.