STL has announced its financial results for the year ended March 31, 2023. The company reported record revenues of Rs 69.25 billion, growing 27 per cent over the previous year along with 29 per cent and 51 per cent growth in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) and profit after tax (PAT) respectively. Last year, STL had shared its strategic intent to drive focused growth, which it followed through this year, with strong execution of the outlined priorities, resulting in a financially robust business.
STL reported a strong 46 per cent revenue growth in its optical business along with a 93 per cent EBITDA increase, on the back of increased volumes and realisations, as well as significant growth in its focus markets. In the US, the company kicked off commercial operations in its cable facility in South Carolina. In Europe and the UK, it deepened its existing engagements and also partnered with 20 new customers, closing FY23 with orders valued at around Rs 24 billion. In India, STL worked with top telecom operators for their pan-India fibre rollouts, winning orders worth approximately Rs 10 billion.
Making strong progress towards its goal of net-zero by 2030, STL recycled 150,000 m3 of water, avoided more than 8,000 tCO2e and reused and diverted over 75,000 MT of waste. STL also received Zero Waste to Landfill certification for all its manufacturing facilities in India and Italy.
Commenting on the company’s annual performance, Ankit Agarwal, managing director, STL, said “Last year we sharpened our focus and set out on the path to be among the world top three companies in the optical business. I am delighted to see our focused strategy yield strong results for the company. The industry continues to show significant long-term growth and we are excited about co-creating meaningful solutions with our customers. We believe that, going forward, our strong leadership, customer focus, technology innovation, and sustainability will be the cornerstones of our success.”
Further, in FY23, STL established itself even better in the private telecom segment, received the coveted CMMI level 5 certification for its India operations and achieved operational break even in the UK. To unlock future growth potential of this business, STL’s board of directors has approved the demerger of the global services business into a separate legal entity, on a going concern basis. This decision, once approved by the shareholders and regulators, will create an industry-leading business that will drive large-scale network and IT infrastructure projects with sharp customer focus and agility. The shareholding of STL and the new entity will mirror each other and the new entity will be publicly listed.
At the beginning of the new financial year, STL also announced its foray into the multi trillion-dollar IT services industry. This was achieved through the formation of STL Digital, which is focused on engineering digital experiences for customers across verticals including telecom, technology, manufacturing and healthcare. STL Digital is led by Raman Venkatraman, who is an industry leader with nearly 30 years of global experience. The business unit has acquired 18 global customers with an order book of approximately Rs 6.50 billion and is creating a differentiation through its focus on talent and agility.
