Crown Castle was discussing potential leases with satellite telecommunications providers as SpaceX pursued plans to use US cell sites, the tower company's chief executive said on a Wednesday earnings call.
SpaceX was targeting at least 80,000 US cell sites, with talks underway with at least one infrastructure owner, Bloomberg Television reported on Closing Bell, published Oct. 23.
Crown Castle was among the companies in discussions. The potential leases would give tower owners business from satellite services, whose plans also drew attention to competition facing wireless carriers.
The chief executive faced a question about whether the company was discussing leases with SpaceX, Amazon or other satellite telecommunications businesses. “You can assume that we're talking to all parties.”
The executive declined to discuss specific customer details. The remarks did not establish whether Crown Castle had reached an agreement with SpaceX or identify the terms of any potential leases.
The account also left open how many sites Crown Castle might provide and when any agreement might take effect. It gave no financial commitment from either company for the proposed arrangements.
Crown Castle, American Tower and Vertical Bridge are among the largest owners of cellular towers, the structures that support equipment used to connect mobile phones to wireless networks.
The share moves split tower owners from wireless service providers. Crown Castle rose 9%, American Tower gained 4% and SBA Communications advanced about 3.6%, in figures carried by Bloomberg.
Wireless carriers fell after the SpaceX news. T-Mobile dropped 7.7%, Verizon declined 1.2% and AT&T lost 8%. The carriers were among the session's larger decliners in the S&P 500.
Those losses came during a broader decline in US stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 652 points, or roughly 1%, while the S&P 500 lost about 40 points, or 0.5%.
The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.2%, and the Nasdaq 100 finished roughly flat. Both indexes lost about 0.8% over the week, while the Dow retained a weekly gain of about 0.4%.
Smaller companies performed better over the week. The Russell 2000 fell about eight points, or 0.3%, during the session but finished the week with a gain of about 2%.
Energy and technology were the only S&P 500 sectors to rise during the session. Energy gained more than 2.5%, while technology edged higher. Consumer discretionary shares fell more than 2%, and communication services also declined.
