HFCL to ramp up cable production by 30% in six months

HFCL, a telecom equipment manufacturer and systems integration company, is planning to ramp up optical fibre cable (OFC) production, including Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) cable, by 30 per cent. The company expects good demand for its products for the next five years.

“Today we manufacture about 19 million km of OFC per year. We are planning to increase this by 30 per cent it in the next 6 months, by increasing capacity at our Hyderabad plant,” HFCL Managing Director Mahendra Nahata said.

HFCL (formerly Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd) manufactures OFC from its three facilities; Hyderadad, Chennai and Goa.

Currently, the company manufactures 52,000 km of FTTH cable per month at its Chennai and Hyderabad facilities. FTTH cable, and production of other cables, will also be increased by 30 per cent, he added.

The firm, which started production of WiFi products in this financial year, had already shipped nearly 1 lakh pieces. The company is also developing Software Defined Radio and High capacity radio relays for Defence.

Earlier, HFCL had also won contracts to install telecom systems for Mauritius and Dhaka metro rail projects.

Order book

As of December 31, HFCL’s order book stood at ₹7,313 crore to be executed over the next 1.5 years.

“With an attractive pipeline ahead, and we are seeing good opportunities for our indigenously designed and developed products that has application across industries such as telecom, Railways and Defence,” Nahata said.

The 4G spectrum auction, expected launch of 5G services, FTTH gaining ground and BharatNet programmes among others would bring in a lot of opportunities for Indian telecom gear manufacturers, he added.

In February last year, HFCL acquired a 47.87 per cent stake in Chennai-based BigCat Wireless for ₹22.5 crore.