GTPL plans to invest Rs 4.5 bn in Phases III and IV of DAS

[Basil]

MUMBAI: Regional multi-system operator (MSO) GTPL, in which Hathway Cable & Datacom owns 50 per cent stake, is planning to invest Rs 450 crore (Rs 4.5 billion) as it seeks to deploy three million set-top boxes (STBs) across cities falling under the last two phases of digital addressable system (DAS).

GTPL has already expanded into several geographies outside its home state Gujarat. It has presence in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Assam.

“We have presence in several towns falling under Phases III and IV. Our estimate is that we would require three million STBs and a capex of Rs 450 crore,” GTPL COO Shaji Mathews told TelevisionPost.com. GTPL gets 70 per cent of its funding as credit from suppliers.

These include vendor financing from Cisco. “We will actually need to put in Rs 120 crore (Rs 1.20 billion). We expect the balance amount to come as credit from suppliers,” said Mathews. The company has not yet decided whether it should raise debt or fund through equity, Mathews said.

Gujarat accounts for half of GTPL’s total STB population. Out of the three million deployed, 150,000 is from Gujarat. “We have deployed 7.5 lakh STBs in Ahmedabad and 4 lakh in Surat. Kolkata has consumed 7.5 lakh boxes while in Maharashtra we have put in 3 lakh STBs.

Bihar and Jharkhand account for 2.5 lakh boxes and the rest is from Madhya Pradesh,” Mathews explained. Ahead of DAS, GTPL has strategically moved into key markets like Kolkata, Pune and Indore. In Indore, it acquired 50 per cent stake from a local MSO Sri Raghav G in April 2013.

The local MSO has operations in 10 cities of Madhya Pradesh—Dewas, Nagada, Padnagar, Bhamnod, Mhow, Pitampur, Badwah, Sanawad, Khathrod and Unhel. GTPL uses technology from Cisco, NDS, Humax, Ericson, Skyworth and Magnaquest.

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