American Tower raises annual forecast for key profit metric on strong leasing demand

(Reuters) - Real estate investment trust American Tower raised its forecast for annual adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) and beat second-quarter revenue estimates on Tuesday, helped by strong demand for its leasing business.

Demand for land leases has surged as telecom carriers continue to expand their 5G and mobile network infrastructure to meet mounting customer needs.

AFFO, a key measure of cash flow, rose more than 13% for American Tower to $2.79 per share in the second quarter, helped by strong growth in its U.S. and Canada segment as well as in India.

Analysts had estimated an AFFO of $2.53, per LSEG data.

Shares of the Boston, Massachusetts-based company rose about 2.3% in premarket trading.

American Tower, which counts top telecoms such as T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon among its customers, reported total revenue of $2.90 billion, above LSEG expectations of $2.82 billion.

Its property revenue rose 4.6% to $2.85 billion.

American Tower raised its full-year AFFO forecast to a range of $10.48 to $10.72 per share from its prior view of $10.30 to $10.53.

It also lifted its net income forecast to $3.20 billion to $3.29 billion from $3.07 billion to $3.16 billion previously.

(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)