Shares of American Tower (NYSE: AMT) were up 8.5% as of 1:50 p.m. ET Thursday after the communications-infrastructure company announced better-than-expected quarterly results. 

American Tower's third-quarter revenue climbed 5.5% year over year to $2.819 billion, translating to a 30% decline in net income attributable to AMT shareholders to $587 million, or $1.26 per share. The latter drop is primarily attributable to goodwill impairment charges incurred during the quarter as it explores strategic alternatives for its India operations. Analysts, on average, were only expecting earnings of $1.13 per share on revenue of $2.76 billion.

As a real estate investment trust (REIT), a better metric than net income to gauge American Tower's success is adjusted funds from operations (AFFO), which effectively measures the company's cash flow from operations. American Tower's AFFO grew 9.5% year over year in Q3 to $1.206 billion and rose 9.3% on a per-share basis to $2.58.

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Source Fool.com