Midas plans to become billion dollar co in 3 years

Launches Citius, a broadband solution for cable TV

Midas Communications, a city-based telecom equipment provider plans to become a billion dollar company in the next three years. Besides, it is looking at increasing its workforce from 800 to 2,000 in the next 18 months.

Addressing a press conference at the launch of Citius, a broadband solution, Shirish Purohit, CEO and founder director of Midas Communication Technologies, said, "Our vision is to create the first billion dollar telecom products company of India with a global footprint."

Purohit said that the company will lay thrust on wireless which will contribute 40 per cent of the turnover.

At present, Midas' broadband access solutions from wireline contributes almost 80 per cent and wireless accounts only for 20 per cent. The company's turnover is expected to cross Rs 400 crore during the current year.

When asked whether the company will require further infusion of capital for it to grow to a billion dollar company, Purohit said that the company may go in for a public issue in a year-and-a-half. Midas had received a $10 million (Rs 45 crore) funding from US-based venture capital firm, Argonaut Private Equity last year.

The broadband solution works on the existing cable television infrastructure. Citius makes use of the cable television network for downstream traffic and uses broadband wireless for the upstream. It provides up to 40 mbps of data speeds. The citius platform enables simultaneous data, voice and video download on an integrated system.

All households, which have a television and a cable connection with a computer, are potential customers and therefore the company is estimating to have about 1 lakh subscribers by the end of the current fiscal, said Purohit.

Purohit said, "We have already tested marketed in four places including Rajasthan and Jaipur. We are in talks with cable operators and ISP."

Citius will be priced between Rs 3,500 and Rs 8,000 depending on the number of subscribers a cable operator has. "It is viable to provide broadband as low Rs 100 for 256 kbps speed," he added.

Midas has three research and development centres in Chennai and two manufacturing units, one in Chennai and the other in Pondicherry.