“In cable TV, the main capex was spent on set-top boxes. So, out of Rs 160 crore, you can say around 90% is on the cable boxes. The rest is on fibre,” Pankaj said.GTPL Hathway is India’s largest cable TV company, with 8.9 million paying subscribers. It also has over a million broadband customers. For the nine months ending December 31, 2024, the company’s net profit fell 60% year-on-year to Rs 38 crore, while revenue increased 8% to Rs 2,586 crore.
In 2023, the company had announced a capex of Rs 1,400 crore over the next three years, Rs 450-500 crore each year, divided equally between the cable TV and broadband businesses.
Pankaj said the soon-to-launch headend in the sky (HITS) business was 80% complete on the capex side. The company is awaiting some final approvals from the government before rolling out the HITS service. “By next quarter, the whole project (HITS) will be completed, and we will be ready to launch,” he said.
GTPL Hathway, which received the HITS licence from the information and broadcasting ministry in July, intends to invest Rs 100 crore in the project, people familiar with the matter had earlier told ET.
The company intends to acquire customers in cable dark areas of the country, particularly in northern India, through HITS, which is a satellite-based platform that combines the features of cable TV and DTH..
GTPL Buzz, the company’s entertainment app, which offers cloud gaming, live TV streaming and international content, has reached a subscriber base of one million, Pankaj said.
