This Week’s Stock of the Week is growing with the rapidly rising consumer need for wireless data.

Towering Presence

American Tower Corporation (AMT) is a tower-leasing company for cell-phone companies and others that operate by giving customers access to the broadband spectrum. It reorganized as a REIT—real estate investment trust—in 2012, and since then has paid out 90% of earnings to shareholders annually.

The company is a major beneficiary of the continuing huge increase in broadband demand worldwide. It operates more than 146,000 sites, with the largest single number—57,000—in India, thanks to a series of acquisitions there. The US is its second-largest geographical area, with 40,000 towers. Growing data demands have kept American Tower revenue rising sharply. It was $5.8 billion in 2016, will likely be reported as $6.65 billion for 2017 and should reach $7 billion this year. Because the firm has focused more on organic growth and less on the acquisitions that drove it before it became a REIT, profits have continued to mount as well.

Rising interest rates, which can hurt REITs that focus on acquiring new properties, are not a major issue for American Tower. Its biggest risks are the chance that wireless carriers might decide to construct their own towers rather than invest in expanding their networks—although this seems unlikely—and a longer-term possibility of all-new technology finding a nontower method of broadband delivery. That is very unlikely in the near future, which means the dividend of $2.80/share/yr., recently yielding 2%, appears secure and is likely to increase.

Fiscal year: December. Earnings per share: 2018 est./$3.55…2017 est./$2.90…2016/$1.98.

Steven M. Rogé is portfolio manager, R.W. Rogé & Company, Beverly, Massachusetts, which manages $220 million. RWRoge.com