1. At a Glance
There are bad years. Then there are years where a telecom equipment company goes from ₹8,923 crore revenue to ₹1,103 crore in just twelve months, posts a ₹909 crore loss, piles up ₹4,177 crore of debt, and still tells investors that everything is under control because the “future pipeline is strong.”
Welcome to the strange world of Tejas Networks.
This is not a tiny speculative company run by promoters sitting in a rented office promising AI, EV, blockchain and moon missions. This is a Tata-backed telecom equipment company that genuinely builds products, owns patents, ships routers, makes optical gear, works on 5G radios, has global customers and supplies to some of the biggest government telecom projects in India.
That is what makes the story so interesting.
The company is not broken because of lack of technology. It is broken because of timing. Tejas loaded up inventory, borrowed heavily, expanded capacity, built products, hired people, and geared up for one of the biggest telecom rollouts in India: BSNL’s nationwide 4G/5G project.
Then the orders slowed down.
Now the company is sitting on ₹2,438 crore of inventory, ₹3,258 crore of receivables, a cash conversion cycle of 2,010 days, and debt levels that would make even some infrastructure companies nervous. Meanwhile, revenues have fallen quarter after quarter and losses are piling up.
But here is the twist.
Despite all this, Tejas is still winning BharatNet contracts, getting international wireless trials, signing NEC agreements for 5G Massive MIMO radios, shipping routers, expanding into data center networking and talking about AI-driven telecom infrastructure.
So what exactly is Tejas Networks right now?
A future telecom champion stuck in a terrible working capital nightmare?
Or a company that got too excited after one big BSNL project and is now paying the price?
That is the real question.
2. Introduction
Tejas Networks is one of the few Indian telecom equipment companies trying to compete with giants like Nokia, Huawei and Ciena.
That sentence alone deserves some respect.
Most Indian companies in telecom hardware are either cable manufacturers, assemblers, or small networking players. Tejas is different. It actually designs and manufactures optical networking equipment, GPON gear, DWDM systems, routers, 4G/5G radios, packet switching products and satellite communication equipment.
The company has over 676 patents filed and 371 granted patents. It has contributed to global 3GPP telecom standards and is now investing heavily into 5G-Advanced, 6G, AI-driven networking, satellite IoT and data center interconnect products.
The Tata Group saw strategic value in this business and Panatone Finvest, a Tata Sons subsidiary, now owns around 53.5% of the company.
That promoter backing is a huge positive because telecom equipment is not a business where you can survive without deep pockets. Every year you need to spend on R&D, product development, sales teams, trials, certifications, global marketing, warranty support and manufacturing scale.
The problem is that Tejas decided to scale up very aggressively after the BSNL project.
FY25 was a dream year. Revenue exploded to ₹8,923 crore and net profit reached ₹447 crore.
Then FY26 became the hangover year.
Revenue crashed to ₹1,103 crore, operating margin collapsed to negative 62%, PAT turned to a loss of ₹909 crore, and the balance sheet became extremely stretched.
Management says the issue is not demand destruction. According to them, the problem is BSNL order delays and slower site readiness. They have already procured inventory for future BSNL orders, but the execution is delayed. That means cash is stuck, inventory is sitting, debt is rising and revenue is not coming fast enough.
This is why Tejas today looks like a company standing in the middle of a traffic jam with a Ferrari engine.
The technology is there. The ambition is there. The promoter backing is there.
The cash flow is absolutely not there.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Tejas Networks sells telecom equipment.
But that is like saying a hospital “does medicine.”
The company basically builds the plumbing of digital infrastructure.
Its products include:
- Optical networking systems like DWDM and OTN
- GPON and XGS-PON broadband products
- Packet transport and routing equipment
- IP/MPLS routers
- 4G and 5G radio access network equipment
- Satellite communication products
- Telecom core networks
- Data center interconnect solutions
- Enterprise switching products
In simple terms, whenever a telecom company wants to send massive amounts of internet traffic between towers, cities, data centers or villages, Tejas wants to sell the hardware that makes it happen.
The company is heavily involved in
