Sterlite Technologies532374Capex expansion plan
Q2 FY27 call: Lakshya FY29 roadmap, 50% capacity expansion, about Rs 1,000 crore annual capex
Transcript of the Q2 FY27 earnings call held on October 23, 2026 is now on record.
By ScoutQuest · · 3 min read
2%R&D commitment as share of annual revenue
- FY29 revenue ambition
- INR20,000 crores in revenue
- Capacity expansion
- expanding preform, fiber and cable capacities by 50%
- Annual capex commitment
- around INR1,000 crores per year through FY '29
Call snapshot
This is the transcript of the Q2 FY27 earnings call held on October 23, 2026, covering the management's opening remarks on strategy, demand and expansion plans.
The Lakshya road map for FY '29
- Management restated the ambition of becoming a top 5 global connectivity player and reaching INR20,000 crores in revenue.
- FY '27 is described as the first year of that plan, being run through five execution priorities.
- Revenue mix is being shifted towards high value-added integrated connectivity solutions, with a faster build-up of the data centre footprint.
- 2% of annual revenue is being committed to R&D for next-generation optical platforms.
- Margin expansion is to come from cost efficiencies and from delivering stronger value to customers.
- Preform, fiber and cable capacities are being expanded by 50%, alongside a new greenfield facility for pre-term related solutions.
- All of this is backed by an annual capex commitment of around INR1,000 crores per year through FY '29.
What management said about demand
- Data centres remain the fastest-growing driver of optical fiber demand; CRU upgraded its 2026 demand projection for this segment to 89% year-on-year, sharply up from 63% a quarter earlier.
- Morgan Stanley's 2026 forecast was revised upward from $805 billion to $978 billion, with a projection of $1.5 trillion of investment in 2027.
- Global 5G subscriptions are projected to reach 6.4 billion by 2031, of which India is projected to account for 1 billion; global 6G subscriptions are forecast to cross 180 million by the end of 2031.
- FTTx deployment is seen expanding from 157 million fiber kilometers in 2025 to roughly 166 million fiber kilometers by 2030, with more than 140 million new homes in the U.S. connected with fiber by 2030.
Where the fiber intensity comes from
- Global data centre capacity is expected to grow from about 82 gigawatts to about 219 gigawatts by 2030, with over 70% of total demand coming from AI-specific infrastructure.
- Fiber per switch rack rose from 500 fibers in the cloud era to 12,000 in today's 72 GPU AI nodes, heading towards 16,000 in upcoming architectures.
- Management framed optical fiber as non-negotiable as speeds move from 400 gig to 800 gig and towards 1.6 terabit.
India opportunity as described on the call
- India's live data centre capacity has reached approximately 1.8 gigawatts, after record 258-megawatt additions in the first half of FY '27 alone.
- Installed capacity is projected to rise nearly sixfold to almost 10.5 gigawatts by 2031, with commitments from global hyperscalers and Indian conglomerates.
- The commentary points to state incentives such as stamp duty waivers, 10 to 20 year electricity-duty exemptions and tax holidays extending into 2047.
How the company positions itself
- Described as India's number 1 end-to-end optical manufacturer, with about 9% global optical fiber cable market share outside China.
- More than 805 global patents shared and granted, 35-plus years of operations and 10-plus manufacturing facilities.
- An end-to-end AI data centre portfolio, referred to as Neuralis, is positioned to address this demand.
Point to keep in mind
Management flagged that the discussion may contain forward-looking statements and that this applies to the Lakshya targets as well, so the revenue and capex figures are ambitions rather than recorded results.
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More numbers
- Lakshya FY29 revenue ambitionINR20,000 crores
- Annual capex commitment through FY '29INR1,000 crores
- Expansion of preform, fiber and cable capacities50%
- R&D commitment as share of annual revenue2%
- Global optical fiber cable market share outside China9%
- CRU 2026 data centre fiber demand growth89%
- India live data centre capacity1.8 gigawatts
- Data centre capacity added in H1 FY '27258-megawatt
Source: BSE · 27 Oct 2026
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