Hathway

For the surname, see Hathway (surname).

Hathway
Company typePublic
NSE: HATHWAY BSE: 533162
IndustryTelecommunications
Founder
  • Pheroza Billimoria
  • Roopesh Rao
Headquarters
Mumbai, Maharashtra
,
India
Area served
India
Products
OwnerReliance Industries (71.95%)[1]
Websitewww.hathway.com Edit this at Wikidata

Hathway Cable & Datacom Ltd, formerly BITV Cable Networks, is an Indian cable television and broadband service provider based in Mumbai.[2][3] It was the first company to provide Internet using the CATV network in India, and the first cable operator to launch a digital platform in 2006.[4] Hathway Broadband Internet was the first cable ISP in India. Business India Television (BITV) Cable Networks Pvt Ltd was acquired by Hathway in 1999. As of 2007, the company had a 51% stake in Bhupendran Bhaskar Multinet and a 50% stake in Gujarat Telelinks Pvt Ltd (GTPL).[5][6] In 2011, Hathway GTPL entered Assam with an MoM with V&S Cable Pvt Ltd, and started operations in West Bengal as they acquired KCBPL (Kolkata Cable & Broadband Pariseva Ltd) to create a subsidiary, GTPLKCBPL, responsible for providing services in West Bengal.[7]

Other services

In the second half of 2011, Hathway launched its HDTV services in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Indore, Kolkata; in Gujarat in 2013, and Odisha in 2015. Their new HD DVR set-top box initially provided 8 HD channels, with availability increasing to sixteen in March 2012. There are thirty channels available as of 2020. With this addition, Hathway is now the provider with the most HD channels in its Indian market.[citation needed]

Hathway Broadband Internet was one of the earliest cable ISP services in the Indian cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow and Kolkata. As of 2024, the highest possible speed provided via fiber is 300 Mbit/s. It uses Cisco's Docsis 3 technology in three cities, where the speeds exceed 50 Mbit/s.

There are around 11 million subscribers, of which around 1.77 million currently have wireless/broadband internet available. Approximately 430,000 of these users are using Hathway broadband services.

Hathway was the first Indian digital cable service provider to release digital video recorder (DVR) services, on March 12, 2009, powered by NDS XTV.[8][non-primary source needed]

Acquisition by Reliance Industries

Hathway was the multi-service operator owned by the Rajan Raheja Group.[9] In 2003, it stood as one of the largest multi-system operators in India alongside the Hinduja Group companies of RPG Cable and InCablenet, and the Essel Group controlled Siti Networks,[9] and also one of the three major cable distributors in India alongside DEN Networks and InCablenet.[10]

On October 17, 2018, Reliance Industries announced that it had acquired a 51.34% stake in Hathway for ₹2,940 crore (US$350 million).[11][12][13] The acquisition received approval from the Competition Commission of India in January 2019.[14] Reliance acquired an additional 20.61% stake in Hathway through an open offer worth ₹1,180.42 crore (US$140 million) in March 2019, taking its total stake in the company to 71.95%.[15][16]

References

  1. ^ "How RIL's acquisition of Hathway Cable, DEN Networks hurts rivals". Business Today. 26 October 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2024.
  2. ^ "Hathway Cable & Datacom Ltd Annual Report 2009-2010" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 October 2011. Retrieved 4 June 2011.
  3. ^ "Hathway Cable Q2 Results: Net profit falls 33.7% to ₹20 cr, revenue up 2% YoY". Mint. 17 October 2023. Archived from the original on 19 October 2023. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  4. ^ Major, Rose (12 March 2009). "Hathway offers India's first cable PVR". Rapid TV News. Archived from the original on 18 October 2010.
  5. ^ "Home | GTPL". www.gtpl.net. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  6. ^ "GTPL about".
  7. ^ https://www.goodreturns.in/company/gtpl-hathway/history.html Archived 6 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine History of GTPL Hathway
  8. ^ "Business Wire Hathway Press Release" (Press release). Archived from the original on 16 July 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  9. ^ a b Kohli-Khandekar, Vanita (2003). The Indian Media Business. SAGE Publications. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-7619-9650-7.
  10. ^ Kohli-Khandekar, Vanita (2003). The Indian Media Business. SAGE Publications. p. 67. ISBN 978-0-7619-9650-7.
  11. ^ "Reliance acquires 58.92% stake in Den Networks, 51.34% share in Hathway". Business Today. 23 October 2018. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  12. ^ Reliance (17 October 2018). "Reliance Media Release" (PDF). ril.com. Archived from the original on 11 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  13. ^ Kundu, Rhik (19 October 2018). "What Hathway and Den deals mean for Reliance Jio". Mint. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  14. ^ Laghate, Gaurav (22 January 2019). "Reliance Industries gets CCI nod to acquire Hathway, DEN". The Economic Times. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  15. ^ "Reliance Jio acquires another 12% of Den Networks". Indian Television Dot Com. 9 March 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  16. ^ "Reliance increases shareholding in DEN, Hathway, GTPL through open offer Ashwini". TelevisionPost. 11 March 2019. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019.