Broadband technology firm Sterlite Technologies on Wednesday posted a consolidated loss of Rs 137 crore on account of one-time provisioning for dues from a client.
The company had posted a profit of Rs 86.64 crore in the same period a year ago.
Sterlite Technologies managing director Ankit Agarwal said that the company's underlying business continues to maintain a healthy momentum.
"India will see massive network build up for 5G. We are seeing interest from telecom operators to build redundancy. A lot of demand is coming from data centres companies to build redundancy. We are also looking at the wireless side as well where we are developing radio equipment. We have strong order books from Europe and US as well," Agarwal said.
Consolidated revenue of Sterlite Technologies (STL) grew by 3.69 per cent to Rs 1,370.96 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 1,322.09 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2020-21.
STL chief financial officer Mihir Modi said that the impact on profit has been due to one-time provision against dues of a client which the company expects to recover in future.
The company reported an order book of Rs 11,700 crore comprising 56 per cent from India, 35 per cent from Europe and the Middle East, 7-8 per cent from the US and a balance from the rest of the world.
Agarwal said that the share of orders from overseas business is expected to grow in coming quarters.
During the quarter STL won multi-year contracts across Europe, cumulatively valued at over around Rs 700 crore in the new product line of Optical Interconnect. The company also expanded its footprint in the US with 5G-ready optical products, winning new orders to the tune of around Rs 300 crore.
Agarwal said that he expects that company's wireless product portfolio will start commercially rolling out in the next 12-18 months and the company will compete in the market for setting up 4G and 5G networks.
"In the coming quarters, we will announce our 5G radio units and radio intelligence controllers. We are actively exploring opportunities in government projects as well as telecom operators in India. They are also looking at ORAN as a technology solution. We are also talking to various telecom operators and internet service providers in Europe, US and Australia," Agarwal said.
He said that the company is investing in the UK and the US facilities to ramp up total capacity to 4.2 crore fibre route kilometers from the present level of 3.3 fibre route kilometers.
The company filed 41 new patents this quarter, taking its global patent count to 678.
"We continue to invest significantly in research and development which will enable us over the next several years to take technology leadership across our portfolio. We brought on our board very strong leadership.
"We have four very senior CEOs who have come on board to take each of our core business units-optical, wireless, services and software. This gives us confidence that each of these business units will start growing independently," Agarwal said.
