TCS Up 1% As Consortium Bags Rs 15,000-cr Order From BSNL For 4G Deployment

Tata Consultancy Services has won an advance purchase order from state-owned BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) for the deployment of a 4G network across India. In an exchange filing, the Tata Group company said that the advance purchase order from BSNL is valued over Rs 15,000 crore. 

Tejas Networks Ltd, too, is a part of the TCS-led consortium that successfully bid for the BSNL pan-India 4G project. BSNL has issued Advance Purchase Order (APO) to TCS as well as ITI for this project. 

"As a part of the consortium, Tejas Networks will supply and service the Radio Access Networks (RAN) equipment," the company said in its filing.

Shares of TCS gained 0.8 per cent in the intra-day trade on Monday, while those of Tejas Networks and ITI zoomed 4.2 per cent each. By comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex and the BSE Information Technology indices were up 0.23 per cent and 0.78 per cent, respectively, at 10:05 AM.

In December 2022, government had said that state-run BSNL is working on the its 4G saturation program where every village, which does ot have a high speed broadband connection, will be provided with one within a year or so.

"BSNL has already awarded a lot of contracts for passive infrastructure, while it's in the process of finalising the contracts for active infrastructure," then then-telecom secretary K Rajaraman had said.

Over 24,600 uncovered village were expected to be covered under the programme, many of which are in remote, rural and far flung areas. 

Meanwhile, in the January to March quarter of FY23, TCS’ net profit stood at Rs 11,392 crore, up 14.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY). Sequentially, the firm’s profit was up 5 per cent.

Revenue for Q4FY23 grew 16.9 per cent YoY at Rs 59,162 crore. Sequentially, revenue grew by a mere 0.6 per cent on a constant currency basis. This is one of the slowest sequential revenue growth in constant currency over 11 quarters. 

Tejas Networks, on the other hand, had reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 11.5 crore in Q4FY23 as compared to loss of Rs.49.6 crore for corresponding previous period.