Crown Castle International Corp vs Western Digital Corp — how do they compare? Crown Castle International Corp trades at $79.21 (market cap $34.50B), while Western Digital Corp trades at $563.14 (market cap $194.17B). The key difference: Western Digital Corp is far larger — about 5.6× Crown Castle International Corp's market cap, and Crown Castle International Corp pays the higher dividend (5.38%). Which is the better fit depends on your goals.
| CCI | WDC | |
|---|---|---|
Market Cap | $34.50B | $194.17B |
Sector | Real Estate | Technology |
52-Week High | $113.91 | $746.23 |
52-Week Low | $74.92 | $66.53 |
Enterprise Value | $64.33B | $192.51B |
Dividend Yield | 5.38% | 0.11% |
Signals from Pluang's Aura AI — not financial advice
Crown Castle (CCI) trades at $79.84, up 0.23% on the day, with a bearish technical signal from moving averages. The company reported mixed Q1 2026 earnings, missing EPS estimates, but maintains strong profitability with a 73.82% gross margin. Recent news highlights its pure-play U.S. tower focus and upcoming Q2 2026 earnings call on July 22, 2026.
CCI presents a turnaround opportunity with analyst consensus targeting $97.33, implying 22% upside, but faces risks from high debt levels and volatile earnings. The stock's negative equity and bearish technicals warrant caution despite attractive dividend yield and cost reduction initiatives.
Western Digital (WDC) trades at $555.55, down 4.64% amid a sector-wide memory stock sell-off. The stock shows strong fundamentals with three consecutive quarterly EPS beats, a net income margin of 55.07%, and robust cash flow from operations of $1.69B in 2025. Technical indicators are bearish, with price near the pivot point of $551. Analyst sentiment remains overwhelmingly positive with a 72% buy rating and a $619.07 consensus price target, suggesting significant upside potential.
The outlook is supported by AI-driven storage demand and margin expansion, but near-term volatility from memory pricing cycles and competitive pressures poses risks. The stock's high valuation multiples require sustained earnings growth to justify further appreciation.
Trailing returns across standard periods
Crown Castle International owns and leases roughly 40,000 cell towers in the United States. It also owns more than 85,000 route miles of fiber. It leases space on its towers to wireless service providers, which install equipment on the towers to support their wireless networks. The company's fiber is primarily leased by wireless service providers to set up small-cell network infrastructure and by enterprises for their internal connection needs. Crown Castle's towers and fiber are predominantly located in the largest U.S. cities. The company has a very concentrated customer base, with more than 70% of its revenue coming from the big three U.S. mobile carriers. Crown Castle operates as a real estate investment trust.
Read more on CCI →Western Digital is a vertically integrated supplier of data storage solutions, spanning both hard disk drives and solid-state drives. In the HDD market it forms a practical duopoly with Seagate, and it is the largest global producer of NAND flash chips for SSDs in a joint venture with competitor Kioxia.
Read more on WDC →