Call center industry expects slower growth next year

THE call center industry expects  revenues next year to grow by up to  a fifth on the back of sustained strong demand from foreign firms that want to outsource services to the Philippines.

Benedict Hernandez, Contact Center Association of the Philippines president, told reporters that the contact center sector this year would hit its target revenues of $6.3 billion, almost a fourth higher than last year’s $5.1 billion.

“This is a really good banner year for the contact center industry in the Philippines,” Hernandez said.

“Voice services are best served from the Philippines,” he said.

Hernandez said call centers next year are poised to post revenues totaling about $8 billion.

“Our guidance is we will continue our significant double-digit growth, conservatively between 15 percent and 20 percent,” Hernandez said.

Employment in the sector next year would increase by another 70,000 to 420,000 from 350,000 this year, he added.

Hernandez said the number of call center employees in the Philippines now is bigger than that in India, which is the world’s top business process outsourcing (BPO) destination.

About 90 percent of the clients served by local call centers are from the US.

Call centers comprise about 70 percent of the local BPO industry. –Ben Arnold O. De Vera, Reporter, Manila Times