This Global Trends benchmark on tower companies (TowerCos) covers Australia, Brazil, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Among the main findings in the 12 surveyed jurisdictions:

Infrastructural trends

• There are no TowerCos in Korea or Singapore.
• Across the other ten jurisdictions, at least 2.9m macro-sites owned by 26 TowerCos were reported.
• 92% of TowerCos analysed have passive lease agreements with multiple mobile network operators or multiple types of users.
• All of the three largest TowerCos in Brazil, the EU and the US additionally provide active infrastructure services.

Ownership and consolidation
 

• Only three recent mergers and acquisitions involving tower transactions were subjected to conditions by the national authorities. These were in Italy (Cellnex Italia/CK Hutchison, 2021), South Africa (IHS Towers/MTN SA, 2022), and in the UK (Cellnex /CK Hutchison, 2022).

Government policies

• All the surveyed jurisdictions recently implemented or proposed policies to foster macro site deployments.
• Only Australia, the EU, South Africa and the UK specifically classify tower sites among their critical infrastructure.

Regulatory requirements imposed on TowerCos

• Only Australia and China require a licence for TowerCos to operate.
• Half of the surveyed jurisdictions (Australia, China, the EU, Japan, the UK and the US) may impose restrictions on foreign ownership of TowerCos.

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