MUMBAI: India’s leading multi-system operator, Hathway Cable & Datacom, has an investment plan of Rs 2.20 billion for the next fiscal as it gears up to aggressively push for digitisation.

Hathway will be investing Rs 1.50 billion for the digital set-top boxes (STBs) while broadband will take away Rs 400 million in FY’12. The balance Rs 300 million will be towards fibre and normal operational expenses.
 
“We will have a capex requirement of Rs 2.20 billion in FY’12. Our target is to seed one million STBs in the three metros ahead of the sunset deadline of 31 March 2012,” Hathway Cable & Datacom managing director and chief executive officer K Jayaraman tells Indiantelevision.com.

Hathway plans to seed one million boxes in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata and half-a-million in cities like Ahmedabad, Baroda, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Indore and Bhopal. In Kolkata, Hathway has a presence through its joint venture company, Gujarat Telelinks Pvt Ltd (GTPL), which acquired a 51 per cent stake in Kolkata Cable and Broadband Pariseva.
 
The company will not pursue acquisitions in the analogue cable TV business as it conserves capital for digitisation.

“We have to become like a DTH (direct-to-home) player. We will have to fight in the digital pitch. We will not invest capital on analogue acquisitions,” says Jayaraman.

The DTH operators have been rapidly expanding their subscriber base and expect to exceed their initial target of mopping up 11 million subscribers in FY’11.

Hathway will be launching HD services on 31 May, says Jayaraman.