Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) vs. Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) Head-To-Head Survey

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) and Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) are both large-cap real estate companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership, risk, dividends and earnings.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

90.8% of Crown Castle shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.7% of Digital Realty Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.1% of Crown Castle shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Digital Realty Trust shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Risk & Volatility

Crown Castle has a beta of 0.95, suggesting that its stock price is 5% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Digital Realty Trust has a beta of 1.02, suggesting that its stock price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations for Crown Castle and Digital Realty Trust, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crown Castle	0	12	7	2	2.52
Digital Realty Trust	0	6	25	1	2.84

Crown Castle currently has a consensus target price of $95.13, suggesting a potential upside of 26.88%. Digital Realty Trust has a consensus target price of $219.45, suggesting a potential upside of 21.32%. Given Crown Castle’s higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Crown Castle is more favorable than Digital Realty Trust.

Profitability

This table compares Crown Castle and Digital Realty Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crown Castle	20.71%	-51.60%	3.70%
Digital Realty Trust	11.80%	3.34%	1.59%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Crown Castle and Digital Realty Trust”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Crown Castle	$4.26 billion	7.48	$444.00 million	$1.97	38.06
Digital Realty Trust	$6.77 billion	9.91	$1.31 billion	$2.06	87.81

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

Dividends

Crown Castle pays an annual dividend of $4.25 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.7%. Digital Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $4.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Crown Castle pays out 215.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Digital Realty Trust pays out 236.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Crown Castle is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Digital Realty Trust beats Crown Castle on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.

About Digital Realty Trust

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. operates as a real estate investment trust, which engages in the provision of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. It serves the following industries: artificial intelligence (AI), networks, cloud, digital media, mobile, financial services, healthcare, and gaming. The company was founded on March 9, 2004, and is headquartered in Dallas, TX.