AMT vs LAMR: Which Is the Better Buy in 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.

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 LAMR 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 LAMR 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

Lamar Advertising has been in the outdoor advertising business since 1902 and has traded on Nasdaq under LAMR since 1996, converting to a REIT in 2014. It runs three operating segments. Billboards are the core: approximately 159,300 displays in 45 states and Canada, of which roughly 5,500 are digital LED faces that rotate copy every six to eight seconds. Logo signs, the small highway exit plates advertising nearby gas, food and lodging, are a quieter but genuinely defensible franchise, since Lamar holds 24 of the 28 privatized state logo contracts and operates over 144,400 logo displays. Transit rounds it out with roughly 40,600 displays on buses, shelters and in airport terminals. Local advertisers supply about 79% of outdoor net revenue, which management believes runs above the industry average and which explains why Lamar's results track small business confidence more closely than national brand budgets.

Full LAMR 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.
• LAMR drivers: The digital conversion programme; AFFO, not net income, is the operative metric.

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 LAMR, outdoor advertising is cyclical and discretionary, and with local advertisers supplying about 79% of outdoor revenue, a squeeze on small businesses reaches Lamar's occupancy and rate before it reaches national media budgets.

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; LAMR 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 LAMR 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.

LAMR. At a share price near ~$155 and a market capitalisation of ~$15.8B, Lamar trades around ~28 times trailing GAAP earnings and roughly ~17.6 times the midpoint of guided 2026 AFFO per share. The AFFO multiple is the one the REIT investor base actually transacts on, and it sits above the multiple on Clear Channel Outdoor and OUTFRONT Media, a premium the market has historically granted for Lamar's lower leverage, its small market share positions and its logo sign contracts. Enterprise value including the ~$3.47B of net debt works out near ~17.5 times trailing adjusted EBITDA.

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); LAMR shows revenue (ttm) ~$2.33B, net income (ttm) ~$556M, adjusted ebitda (ttm) ~$1.10B, 2026 affo guidance ~$8.75 to ~$8.90 per diluted share.

AMT and LAMR 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 LAMR exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.