Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Q3 FY 2024 results conference call of GTPL Hathway, hosted by Emkay Global Financial Services. As a reminder to all participants, line will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. Should you need any assistance during the conference call, please signal the operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would like now to hand the conference over to Mr. Pulkit Chawla from Emkay Global Financial Services. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Q3 FY 2024 earnings call for GTPL Hathway. From the management, we have with us today Mr. Anirudhsinh Jadeja, Promoter and Managing Director, Mr. Piyush Pankaj, Business Head CATV and Chief Strategy Officer, and Mr. Saurav Banerjee, Chief Financial Officer. Without any further delay, I shall now hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks. Over to you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Pulkit. Good evening, everyone. A warm welcome to everybody to the earnings call of GTPL Hathway to discuss financial performance of quarter 3 FY 2024. We continue to be the largest MSO in India and increasing our footprint in both cable TV and broadband business. The broadband business continues to go from strength to strength as we achieve the milestone of 1 million active subscribers during the quarter. Our strategy for growth remains unchanged as we look for opportunity for inorganic growth via acquisition, while actively pursuing organic growth in subscribers. The industry landscape in both our business segments, mainly cable TV and broadband, bodes well for our growth strategy, as smaller players will start getting consolidated. I will now hand over the call to Mr. Piyush Pankaj, who will take you through the quarterly business and financial performance of the company. Piyush?
Thank you, Mr. Jadeja. Good evening, everyone. Our digital cable TV subscriber base as on 31 December 2023 stands at 9.40 million. Paying subscribers stand at 8.70 million. On a YoY basis, the increase in active and paying subscribers is 500,000, a 6% increase, and 400,000, a 5% increase respectively. Subscription revenue saw an increase of 17% YoY to INR 3,249 million and 15% on 9-month basis, to INR 9,456 million. In the broadband business, as Mr. Jadeja mentioned, and we have mentioned in our press release, we have crossed 1 million active subscribers, ending the quarter at 1.005 million. We thus have added 110,000 new subscribers, an increase of 12% on a YoY basis.
Home pass subscribers stood at 5.60 million as of December 31, 2023, of which 75% are available for FTTH conversion. Home pass grew by 450,000 on a YoY basis. The broadband ARPU for Q3 FY 2024 remained at INR 450. The average data consumption per customer per month stood at 345 GB per customer, an 11% increase YoY. We have continued to post consistently high revenues every quarter. On a consolidated level, revenues grew by 22% YoY to INR 8,607 million. The broadband revenue stood at INR 1,352 million, and registering a growth of 9% on a yearly basis. The consolidated EBITDA stood at INR 1,305 million, with an EBITDA margin of 15.2%. CapEx for Q3 FY24 stood at INR 247 million.
Operating EBITDA saw an increase of 12% YoY to INR 1,171 million, primarily led by higher growth in subscription income and ISP income. The standalone revenue stood at INR 5,217 million, an increase of 16% YoY and 2% QoQ. EBITDA stood at INR 757 million, a 6% YoY, and EBITDA margin of 14.5%. CapEx for quarter 3 FY 2024 stood at INR 191 million. I would like to welcome our new CFO, Mr. Saurav Banerjee. Mr. Banerjee is a chartered accountant with over 30 years of experience, having worked with GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, Times Group, Gati Limited, Rosy Blue India, Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri Limited, and KEAN Group. Thank you, everyone. I will request Saurav to interact.
Thank you, Mr. Piyush. Hello, and welcome to this earnings call. I am Saurav Banerjee, CFO, GTPL Hathway Limited, and I look forward to interacting with the investor community and other stakeholders as we go along over the next few quarters. We can now begin the Q&A session.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press one, star and one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking the questions.... Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have a first question from Mr. CA Nihar Shah from Crown Capital. You may go ahead, please.
Good evening, sir. Good evening.
Hi, good evening.
Yeah. My first question is on the margin, like we mentioned in the Q2 con call, that our EBITDA margins can be, can reach 20% by Q4, so is it achievable? Right.
So we have, if you see this quarter, the EBITDA margin is at 15.2% on a consolidated basis, which is mainly because the placement and marketing has gone up, and accordingly, the contribution of placement and marketing in EBITDA is almost negligible. So that's why, if you see, we are doing at 15%. We are looking forward that this will improve to somewhere 17%-18% by end of quarter four, and we will remain there. But this time, if you see the presentation, we have given the operating margins. A new slide has been introduced, and we have given the operating margin, where it is shown that the margin is intact throughout.
And, the business are doing the whole business is at the same margin, and we are getting the same margin over the years. So that's that analysis you can see, and you will come to know that, we have taken out the one-time income on that, and, we have mixed the two channels with the placement and marketing incomes, so that we can come to the right margin or correct margin of the business operations. So that's, that you can see that in the next slide.
Okay. Okay. And any, what kind of EBITDA margins can we assume going ahead? So 17%-18%, I assume we said in Q4. So let's say FY 2025, what are our expectations for the margin?
No, we are going to do the margin with the time. So right now I'm talking about quarter 20, quarter 4, that we should be between 17%-18%. We are looking forward that by FY 2025, we should come back to 27% EBITDA margin on the overall business, which was there. Yes, operating margin is still intact with the whole business, but yes, the EBITDA also, we are looking forward that should be between somewhere we could achieve 20%-21% of the earlier mark by end of FY 2025.
Okay, sir. One last question: what will the, what will our depreciation look like this year and next year? Like, the numbers, if it's possible.
Yeah. So if you see the overall depreciation last year, because if you remember in the quarter four, we had seen that we had changed the policy on the depreciation based on the recommendation by our auditor, Deloitte. And the total depreciation was at around INR 319 crore in the FY 2023. We are looking forward that this year it will be somewhere around INR 340 crore-INR 342 crore. It is going to be, which is increase of somewhere INR 20 crore-INR 24 crore. If you see, we are doing around INR 400 crore of CapEx every year, which is which we are giving, and on the INR 400 crore of CapEx, we usually like somewhere between eight to nine years for both cable and broadband business.
If we calculate on that basis, the depreciation will increase by 24-25 every year, and that is what we are going to see in the FY 2024.
Okay, sir. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Mr. Vinit Manek from Karma Capital Advisors.
Yeah. Hi, Piyush. Hello, Mr. Jadeja. I have two questions.
Hi.
Two questions from my side. The first is on the absolute profitability. So, it has been now consistently eight to nine quarters that we have seen a decline in our absolute, profit after tax. So how should we look at that going forward? Because earlier we were doing close to around INR 50 crore-INR 55 crore of quarterly PAT, which is now more than half of that number. So how should we look at that going forward?
So, Vinit, now I will say that business is almost stabilized. Last two years, you will see a lot of changes has happened. COVID has impact, the business have stumbled. Then NTO 3.0 has happened. The new auditor has come, which has got changed some of the policies. And now we are at a stable level where I'm confident, I'm saying that EBITDA will improve. Yeah, depreciation will be this much and there is no changes going forward and all. So we are looking forward that last year we did around INR 115 crore of PAT, and this year we are going to do better than that.
And the PAT increase, which we have seen from 2017 to 2020, 2021, we are going to have the growth rate more than almost there or more than that, again, in the business. So that's the rhythm of business is coming back. That's what we are seeing, and we are very hopeful that we are really going to achieve that same here.
So by next three quarters, can we expect a INR 40 crore kind of a PAT earned it on a quarterly?
Right now, this quarter we did INR 24 crore. We are going to be better than this in next quarter surely. Slowly we will see that the rise in the PAT. I can't assure particular numbers, but, yeah, I think that the next call, when we are ready with our whole plan for the next year, our operating plans and all, we will be more confident to say INR 40 crore or INR 45 crore or INR 35 crore, or what number yeah.
Okay. And, sir, also coming to the broadband subscribers, the incremental quarter-on-quarter addition was very less during the quarter, despite of us saying that we have some partners subscribers coming in for us. So, what's the status over there, and how are we looking incrementally, things happening on that side?
Well, right now, this quarter, if I talk about, we have just gone up by 15,000. And, the reasons was, few of the reasons was there and there, because, very purpose going on and all, and, we are more concentrating towards the making sure that, the cable business works on that way. As you know, a lot of changes has happened on the multi-side, also the streaming side and all. So those, those are the reasons we have, that is happening. And some of the technical issues which we had in the B2B, that has already been getting over now. And, on this, 15,000, around, 7,000 is B2B and rest is B2C.
Till date, we built around B2B of 65,000 in the overall, and we are looking forward that from this quarter onwards, we should start getting big numbers on this. Yeah, this quarter is a bit muted. We had crossed 1 million subscriber base, but on the addition side, this quarter is a bit muted. One of the access, one of the accessory quarter, I would say, from next quarter onwards. So we are hoping that we will come back to same additions of between 25,000 to, between 25,000 to 35,000 per month. So that's important. So...
Yeah, because I was just comparing the industry numbers from the TRAI website. So on a year-on-year basis, the whole industry is growing faster than 20%, and we have not been able to... On a lower base, we have not been able to grow on such. So that's, that's the context on that.
Yeah. Because of one of the reason, Vinay, is that as you know, our ticket prices are, when we get the customer onboarded, our ticket size is somewhere around nine to 10 months, which will still be continuing. We have not gone for monthly or quarterly right now, and that is one of the reason that the growth rate is a bit muted on that, because other players have already gone on there, but their churns are very high. And it's more of like what capital investment you are doing and how much you are losing on the capital side. So those things comes into the picture. And but yes, we are still sticking to that nine to 10 months, which is working for us right now.
We look forward to come back to that type of growth again. We are hoping we will see that we will start seeing the better results or better additions from next quarter on.
Okay. And just one last one from my side. So on the Metrocast thing, we had a press release, this quarter, saying that there is some delay on the merger side of it. So do we expect it to complete by March 2024?
Yeah, it is getting. The expectation is that, by end of January or mid of February, all those things will be done. It's a joint call from our side as it was somewhere we wanted to do it. Already all the obligations from each side has been completed and all. But, as you say, if something doesn't happen, even the new CFO has come to the system and all. So we have delayed it purposely by one and a half months, and it will be completed.
Okay. So the subscribers and the subscription revenue for the same has already come in for us. So we have started accounting for that now?
Yeah, yeah, that's already done.
So-
All consideration has been done. That is with Metrocast, consolidated line by line.
Okay. And there will be some cash outflow towards the number of shares that we will be purchasing from the promoters. There will be some cash outflow?
Already, the cash outflow and whatever we have to do, the obligation, that's what we agreed, and the suppliers, the boxes and everything, matters with that. That's already been done. There is no financial obligations to the same. We just have to do the increase the secretarial works on that.
... Okay, okay, okay. Got it. Got it. Thank you. Thank you for answering my questions.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. Mr. Bala Subramanian from Arihant Capital.
Good evening, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Sir, I just want to check, we have 9.4 million active subscriber on the cable TV business. Like, we can expect 10 million subscription in the next quarter itself. And I just want to understand about the penetration levels, especially in the rural market. If you go to clarify, like, north, south, west, east, like where we are majorly focusing on?
Yes, we are trying, as we say, that we are adding year-over-year basis and quarter-over-quarter basis, and we reached 9.4. By March quarter, by March quarter or in October quarter before, we are hoping that we'll be close to 10 million from there. If we cross it, it's going to be very good, but yeah, we are going to be close to 10 million. And if we talk about the market scenarios, yes, already that if I talk about in the percentage term, we are somewhere around out of this 35% is in the east. And if I talk about the west, yes, we are around somewhere around 30%, 30%, 34%, 35% in the west.
West, South and North. North, as we have given, we have just started a year back only. North is hardly right now, but we are hoping that market is going to be open. And we are increasing very fast within March and within a year also, there are 20 million members that we have launched. And we are already at overall in the five to six months, and we are hopeful that it will start contributing to some percentage.
Sir, like, 35% east and west, 34%-35%, it's a growth terms or a percentage of share business you're talking?
No, I'm talking about the share business.
South and north, how much, sir?
South is somewhere around. Right now, south is somewhere around 15%-16%. It is growing in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and Andhra. Together, we are around somewhere around 17%, 17%-18%.
The remaining from north. Okay, got it. Also, like, we have been achieved, good quarter in the top line side. Like, earlier quarter, we have mentioned around 18%-20% CAGR on the subscription revenue, and EBITDA growth of 12%-13%. And, like, how do you see going forward, because we are adding more subscribers, and the realization is also like, like, the realization is moving slowly. How do we achieve, this kind of revenue target going forward?
See, that CAGR, which was earlier the CAGR of the whole revenue, was somewhere around 17%-18%, and the data CAGR was 20%-21%. Yes, this year we are seeing that in the nine months to nine months basis. If you talk about the operating side, operating side, we are doing it around 15% in the subscription, and broadband is 11%, nine months to nine months. And EBITDA is somewhere around 5%-6% right now. This year, yeah, you're right, that NTO has come into the play, and we have to increase our prices in the market, plus same doesn't, didn't happen in the past as I did not. But now that limitation of NTO are now back to the same, you can say, stable.
So we are looking forward that, in next two years' time, we will again start getting those type of CAGRs in this business.
Got it. Sir, you have earlier mentioned about a CapEx of INR 400 crore or something. I missed that number. This CapEx is for maintenance CapEx or like we are like buying any asset kind of thing?
No, no. The total CapEx, the estimate of CapEx, which we have given for the yearly is INR 400 crore.
Yes, sir.
Till date, we have done INR 305 crore of the CapEx. Out of that, CPE CapEx is INR 150 crore and broadband CapEx is INR 150 crore. This is for quarter three.
Okay, sir. Okay, got it. Okay, thank you, sir.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. Our next question is from Rama Manohar, an individual investor.
Hi. Yes, sir, just, I have one question regarding the investments that you have made so far. I think last three to four years, you made investments of around INR 1,000 crore-INR 1,500 crore, when the top line went by just 1x, and the bottom line is, I think, 50% down. Just I think as a company, we need to think about whether the investments are really useful, to contribute any bottom line... because, after spending INR 1,000 crore, not even maintaining the net profit margins, I think it is somewhat I think the company is, whether going in the right direction or, how we are going to control other expenses. The depreciation is going continuously very high.
Like, all of a sudden in Q4 or suddenly you said not even in one quarter, just before one quarter, you said the 20% margins, and then it will come to 15% or 14%. How you are going to see the next quarter or next one or two years growth? Can you please clarify?
Yeah. So that's why, that's why I explained that, that you should refer to the operating margin, which is given in the, we have given it in the presentations. Rather than going into this EBITDA margin, because the contribution of whatever increase is happening in the marketing and placement revenue is very low in the EBITDA side, because the free channel is increasing on the same level. So marketing and incentive and free channel, always we have to see by netting that, which I am stating it from the last three years. That whenever you do the analysis, you do it after netting the free channel cost and marketing and placement revenue, and then you see the margin, which we have presented this time in our presentation, in the investor presentation, which you can see.
If you go and see that, you will find that the business is very healthy still. But still, at the nine-month level, we are doing 25% of operating margin, which was 26% last year. So we are maintaining the business as we go forward. We just have to take out one-time deferred revenue of activation, and we have to take out other non-operating income, which is one-time, which we have shown, which is taken out on that analysis.
No.
We have seen the opposite margin.
Sorry.
For the business health, you should go and see that.
Yeah.
The operating margin, rather than the real margin, which is coming there, because that is more of accounting. Yeah.
But even if you take out the activation, suppose the activation income was, say, around INR 100 crore, around INR 50 crore. Three years back, we made INR 200 crore profit. If you deduct that INR 100 crore, say, we were there at INR 100 crore, now also we are at INR 100 crore profit. And what is the use of spending extra INR 1,000 crore?
On that, if you see, we are doing around operating EBITDA of INR 352 crore, and there is a point where we get the INR 232 crore. So we are going to cross that. Well, second. Second, you have to understand that, which I explained in the last three quarters, that we have to do some CapEx to maintain the business as the churn has gone up in the CTV business, which was negligible earlier. From last three years or three and a half years, you can say the churn has gone up. So some CapEx is going to maintain the business, and there you will see that those cost, those CapEx is not contributing towards the increase in the revenue side now. But to maintain the CapEx, for that, you—for maintain the business, you have to do that CapEx.
That is where you will see the difference, that's how the big difference is coming. The path is getting stabilized now because those patterns which you can see, whatever you have to do for the CapEx, for maintaining the business, is going to stabilize now. So when you started doing it, you will see that there is an impact on the depreciation. Depreciation is going up. But now, from this year onwards, because the depreciation also, say, which I explained, that what depreciation we did last year and what we are doing this year is getting stabilized now. There is no surprise in the depreciation side. So that's where the business is going on.
If you talk about the health of the business and all, I'll just give you that, India, 320 million households now, and still TV households is just 200 million. Still 120 million TV household has to come into India. Out of 200 million, the cable and satellite you talk about, that is around 170 million. So still from 170 million to 320 million, 150 million households are there, which has to come into the picture for the on the television side, in the cable and satellite also. Plus, there is lot of opportunity in the cable side of smaller players. We are just having 9 million all consolidated. If you consolidate all the players, the nice players, they have just around 30 million subscribers, 30 million-35 million subscribers.
Still, there are 45 million subscribers, which is with the independent smaller MSOs, where you can go and consolidate the whole market. So a lot of opportunities are there where you can, as you start investing and doing that, you will start getting more and more numbers and more and more, businesses. Same if you talk about the broadband business, the total wired in the broadband is around 35 million in the country, out of 300 million households, which is almost around 11% only, not more than that. So still, lot of journey has to happen in the wired and in the whole broadband sector. New technologies are also coming, but everyone is looking for wide. If you talk about, wired in foreign countries, we talk about China. China is crossing 60% right now, the penetration.
If you talk about Euro Zone, Euro Zone is already at 70% penetration. We talk about Korea, 85%. We talk about U.S., already crossing 75%, uh, wired broadband. So India is still lacking on that. We are just at 11%, which this 11% at least should go to at least 40%-45% in next five years' time. So there is a very, very big opportunity from 35 million households to somewhere around 150 million households in next four years, five years. Yeah. Uh, it's more of what technology will come and all. Yeah, the wireless is there, but the wireless is going to convert into wired slowly as more and more digital requirements are coming from the, uh, individual households.
So that's why if you talk about the health of the business, these two businesses are at very good, healthy, health level, and the growth is going to be there in the base of business.
Yes, sir. Only my concern is the other things are still there-
Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Manohar. May we request you to return to the question queue for follow-up questions, as there are several participants waiting for you.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rahul Jain, an individual investor.
Hello. Hello, am I audible?
You're audible. Please, yes.
What is the average churn for other players in the digital cable, and what is our churn?
So the industry churn, if you talk about, is around, 32%-33% right now. Our churn is somewhere restricted to 17, 16%-17% yearly. So that is there.
So, like, why so much gap between the industry and the, our churn rate?
Because of the better management, because of the better relationship on the ground, because of the better team, because of leveraging our strength of being the number one MSO. Lot of factors, the leadership factor, the market penetration factor, the relationship, the stronger team. All this, all this I can give you.
Okay. So my follow-up is, like, historically, our net play channel cost grew by around 3% Yo Y basis. Given it will jump up by mid-teens for the, for this year, do we see any adverse effect on churn rate as less subscribers become actively paying or more, you know, aware?
No, no, no. That is already stable. The Q3 in February is stable, and whatever increase in the rate has to happen within last year from, you could say, from May onwards. And whatever that has to be affected, the ground that has already been taken place by October, November, the ground has got stabilized totally. So we are not seeing that effect. If you see our operating margin considered rate, net operating margin, you will find that net cash flow channel cost has gone down this quarter. And overall increase in the nine months is just 13%, little on the line of what the subscription income has increased.
My second question is, like, can you share what is the project income from... in terms of size of the projects, operational details, profitability, and expected date of execution?
Yeah. So this project is granted by Gujarat ISP Private Limited, that is GISL, after tendering of INR 50 crore, which includes the material and O&M. Wherein the Gram Panchayat of 8,000 Gujarat villages under phase I and phase II of BharatNet project has to be made Wi-Fi enabled by supplying the materials and installation of the same at the Gram Panchayat premises. This project is almost over, and we have taken the substantial revenues in this quarter. Rest of the remaining revenue will come in for the quarter as awareness. The margin is somewhere around 20%-13% in this whole project.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of, Mr. Vinay Jain from Karma Capital.
Good evening, sir. I hope I'm audible.
Yes.
Yeah, please.
Yeah. So just wanted to check with you. So again, you have given growth prospect indications for both the cable TV and-
Hello, Mr. Jain.
Broadband. Hello.
You, you're not audible to us. It's not clear.
Is this better?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah. It is better now. Yeah, please go ahead.
So you, in the earlier, with the earlier participant, you mentioned the growth prospects for both, cable TV and, broadband business. And for broadband, again, for the industry, we are seeing that sort of a growth. So penetration has gone from 7%, say, a couple of years back, to now 11 or, 11%, 12%. So again, industry in a way is growing, but somehow that growth is not getting reflected in our numbers. So again, I just wanted to understand, what are we, doing, or maybe your maybe, medium-term strategy, to get the volume back, for both, digital cable and, broadband business? And again,
Yeah.
At the same time, ensuring that we grow the business profitably.
Yes, sir, you're right on that, because, see, as I explained earlier also in the call, that our B2C business of broadband is mainly in Gujarat. Plus, the six cities where we have to get, and we have built our, network, own network, the last mile network, and everything. And B2C business is just-... Which is like more of a growth area because these are the, bigger cities, you can say, capital cities. Gujarat, the role of the Gujarat, where we have already number one and penetration. Apart from that, it is Nagpur, Pune, Hyderabad, Varanasi, Patna, and Jaipur, all, all capital cities and-
I'm sorry to interrupt. Sir, could you please come a little closer to the mic?
Yeah. Am I audible?
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. So if you see, that's a B2C business. So but all over India level, we have gone for the B2B business, which is still to be taken off, you can say, because we are finalizing the technical aspects and all. Already, we just have around 65,000 subscribers, which is coming this year from the B2B. And we are hopeful that from the next quarter in the next year, this is going to be the years of B2B business to be taken off in the broadband side. And there you can see that we will come back to our growth level and all. B2C, yes, whatever growth is happening right now, that is happening in the B2C and that to be in the older markets. The new markets and all is going to give us more.
Other players have grown because they have grown from the Jio to this level. As you know, that Airtel has started, and Airtel started B2B business around three years back, and already they are doing good on that. Jio is mainly, probably on the B2C, but yeah, they are doing good, very good. So we are going to have the same effect as we go forward in that. So yes, you're right. From 20 million subscriber base, which was there around two years back, has gone up to around, in three years' time, has gone up to around 35 million. We are hopeful that next four to five years is going to be very high growth, where we will see growth of the industry by 50%, 60%, 70% straight away.
In the five years' time, it will touch around 100 million-150 million. So that's the way we are looking forward.
So X of Jio, what would be the industry growth for broadband business?
That's, I already told you that what we are looking forward or what the general reports are saying that what will happen. There are reports available on the industry side that gives the prediction from the industry that how it will shape. I think we have to refer back. We can have the talk on this, but I think it should be offline. I think it, it's going to be little bit tough.
Sure. Sure, sir. But, again, like the reason for asking that was again, if you see the, the organically, the industry, there is a net addition which is happening. Vineet mentioned about a 20% growth on a year-on-year basis. So, we again going through that inorganic route, the B2B acquisitions which we're doing, so ideally our growth rate should be faster, right, than the high single digit, which we are doing right now?
I think we have to debate this offline, then I will say yeah.
No worries, sir.
We can do and what we have to do. So you're right on some aspects, but yes, but we have to go more on the final one, which I can explain, but it's going to be lengthy in this call. So we will have an offline debate on this. Yeah?
Sure. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press Star and One to ask questions. Next question is from line of Rajiv Jha, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Am I audible?
Yes, yes.
Yeah, Rajiv.
Yeah. So, sir, my question is, sir, in terms of the broadband active subscriber, sir, we have kind of things that have settled down to a 12%-13% kind of growth in terms of annual growth. Also, sir, like, our subscriber count grew by 12.75% for 2023. And sir, if I calculate the nine-month numbers on pro rata basis, sir, we may exit this year around at 12.5%. So, sir, will this range of 12%-13% will be a sustainable long-term growth rate for you in terms of active subscribers?
Rajiv, if you remember, we had given the earlier estimate that we are going to be somewhere around between 30,000-35,000 every quarter, somewhere around between 130,000-150,000. Which, we are at, year-to-year basis at the 20,000, but, yeah, this year in the nine months, if you talk about, we are looking forward that next, next quarter, with the next quarter, we are going to be from, somewhere around hundred and to hund- or 120,000 somewhere, in the next quarter. So somewhere, you can say the average is going to be thir- thir- 30,000 per quarter, rather than, 35,000 or 40,000 per quarter.
Yes, we look forward that we will start continuing because we were doing nearly 50,000, then came down to 40,000. Right now it is 7,000-30,000. We will look forward that once B2B business will come into the whole picture, we will start doing again 40,000, and that's, that's what we are looking forward for the next year.
... Okay, sir. So, to the follow-up that, sir, also, am I right in assuming that the ISP revenue growth for the annual business going forward should be settled to around 16%-17%?
Come again, come again, Nabin. Your voice was a bit lingering in the beginning. Can you repeat the question?
Yes, sir. So, also, am I right in assuming that the ISP revenue growth for annual business going forward, we should settle up at around 16%-17%? Yeah.
So right now, if you see, nine months, we are at around 11% right now. It will be somewhere around 16%-17%, you're right. That's what we are looking forward for next financials. But we will be more clear, as I said, that how the growth will happen in FY 2025 or FY 2026 or FY 2027, that we will give more clarity on that in the next quarter as we go forward. But once we are close to ending this financial year and see how we are shaping up in quarter four. So I will say let's just wait for that quarter, and we will give us to that.
Okay, sir. My questions has been answered, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Next question is from the line of Srinivasan, an individual investor. Over to you, sir.
Yeah. Hi, my name is Srinivasan. So basically, I'm looking at the, the, you know, presentation. I just want to know, you know, there is a, a flattish line in the, growth of, the, in the growth of, cable TV business. Okay, so I just want to know, looking forward, going forward, are we expecting a growth in the, consolidated, cable TV business, or we expect the next, four quarters to be flattish, or is there any growth, expected?
You're talking about revenue growth, or you're talking about?
No, I'm talking about the active subscribers, active subscribers and paying subscribers. I want to know this is flat.
For us, we have, because we have added the block addition is there, but due to churn and all, we have come back to the what has been. This quarter, the growth is there, which has given us good gain in the business.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, correct.
End of November, 19th of November, we have started seeing some of the subscribers go down and the churn a bit high after that. And, by 31st December, we are seeing we are quite off. But we are hopeful, as we have, if you see earlier quarters and all, that we have, additions, we are doing the additions now. And, next year is good because, IPL is coming, your, World Cup is coming for the T20. So every quarter you will see some good events are there, which is going to give us boost. And, from next, this quarter, we have not expanded any new cases at all, as you see. So we are going to expand in the next quarter and next year.
So we are hopeful that, as I said, that we are going to close this year closer to 10 million subscriber base. So yes, we are looking forward for the growth, and that will happen.
What about the broadband business? You know, the active subscribers, okay? I can see 10 lakh active subscribers in the broadband. Okay, that's a very good milestone. Okay, what is the rate of expansion in the broadband business in the next three years? What is the rate of active subscribers increase that you're expecting?
Yeah, just given that, we were doing around 30,000 per quarter right now.
Okay.
We are looking forward that we again come back to the rate of 40,000-45,000 or closer to 50,000 in next two quarters. So that's the plan which I've given this, yeah.
And my last question. I just want to know, you know, how much your CapEx you're planning. You know, I understand that you're planning to increase the CapEx on broadband as well as for cable TV, if needed. Okay, I just want to know how the CapEx will happen. Is it gonna be a outside borrowing, or is it going to be internal accrual? That I want to know.
No, no. We are, we are doing all the CapEx through internal accrual. As, for the general businesses, we are doing it for internal accrual, that is, for CATV and broadband growth. We have not gone for the borrowing at all. So it is all from the internal accruals, the CapEx.
Okay. Okay, okay. Thank you so much, and all the best for the upcoming quarters, and a very good set of numbers for this quarter. Congratulations for that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this was the last question of the day. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
I would like to express my thanks to every participants who took their time out to attend the call. I would also like to thank Emkay for arranging this call. For any queries, please feel free to connect with Orient Capital, who are our investor relations advisors. Thank you once again.
On behalf of Emkay Global Financial Services, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.