Crown Castle (CCI) Competitors

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) and SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC) are both large-cap finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, risk, media sentiment, community ranking, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability and earnings.

Is CCI or SBAC a better dividend stock?

Crown Castle pays an annual dividend of $6.26 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.8%. SBA Communications pays an annual dividend of $4.44 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.9%. Crown Castle pays out -69.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. SBA Communications pays out 64.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Crown Castle is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Which has stronger earnings & valuation, CCI or SBAC?

Crown Castle has higher revenue and earnings than SBA Communications. Crown Castle is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than SBA Communications, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Company	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Crown Castle	$6.57B	7.10	$1.50B	-$8.98	-11.92
SBA Communications	$2.68B	9.27	$501.81M	$6.94	33.27

Which has more risk & volatility, CCI or SBAC?

Crown Castle has a beta of 0.89, meaning that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SBA Communications has a beta of 0.74, meaning that its stock price is 26% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Do analysts prefer CCI or SBAC?

Crown Castle currently has a consensus target price of $110.00, suggesting a potential upside of 2.74%. SBA Communications has a consensus target price of $251.92, suggesting a potential upside of 9.12%. Given SBA Communications' stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe SBA Communications is more favorable than Crown Castle.

Company	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crown Castle	0 Sell rating(s)	11 Hold rating(s)	6 Buy rating(s)	2 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.53
SBA Communications	0 Sell rating(s)	5 Hold rating(s)	7 Buy rating(s)	2 Strong Buy rating(s)	2.79

Does the media prefer CCI or SBAC?

In the previous week, Crown Castle had 9 more articles in the media than SBA Communications. MarketBeat recorded 36 mentions for Crown Castle and 27 mentions for SBA Communications. Crown Castle's average media sentiment score of 1.37 beat SBA Communications' score of 1.24 indicating that Crown Castle is being referred to more favorably in the media.

Company	Very Positive	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Very Negative	Overall Sentiment
Crown Castle	29 Very Positive mention(s)	1 Positive mention(s)	5 Neutral mention(s)	0 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive
SBA Communications	20 Very Positive mention(s)	0 Positive mention(s)	5 Neutral mention(s)	1 Negative mention(s)	0 Very Negative mention(s)	Positive

Is CCI or SBAC more profitable?

SBA Communications has a net margin of 25.76% compared to Crown Castle's net margin of 18.59%. Crown Castle's return on equity of 20.98% beat SBA Communications' return on equity.

Company	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crown Castle	18.59%	20.98%	3.20%
SBA Communications	25.76%	-13.13%	6.83%

Does the MarketBeat Community prefer CCI or SBAC?

SBA Communications received 69 more outperform votes than Crown Castle when rated by MarketBeat users. However, 67.97% of users gave Crown Castle an outperform vote while only 67.07% of users gave SBA Communications an outperform vote.

Company	Underperform	Outperform
Crown Castle	Outperform Votes 764 67.97%	Underperform Votes 360 32.03%
SBA Communications	Outperform Votes 833 67.07%	Underperform Votes 409 32.93%

Do institutionals and insiders have more ownership in CCI or SBAC?

90.8% of Crown Castle shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.3% of SBA Communications shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.4% of Crown Castle shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.3% of SBA Communications shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Crown Castle and SBA Communications tied by winning 10 of the 20 factors compared between the two stocks.