Will telecom BPO revenue to touch $2 Billion in 2012?

The outsourcing revenues from the telecom sector in India are set to grow at a CAGR of 31 percent to nearly $2 billion in 2012, says a report by Ernst & Young in a first of a kind study on potential of domestic BPO industry. The telecom industry has been growing fast in spite of recession adding around 10 million subscribers every month with a subscriber base of 375 million in 2008-09.

In 2005, Bharti Airtel, which has been growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate [CAGR] of 41 percent in last two years, started the trend of outsourcing its call center to other global companies like Mphasis, IBM Daksh, Teletech and HTMT at $272.2 million. Since then there is pressure on other telecom providers to do the same. "This domain (telecom) has already witnessed a couple of large outsourcing deals in recent months and the trend is expected to continue," said Ernst & Young partner Milan Sheth. In 2008, Telecom revenues added upto 50 percent of the domestic BPO revenues at $661 million.

BPO is also a huge job creator for telecom industry. According to the study, in 2008 telecom BPO hired over 1,22,440 people and by 2012 this number is expected to double. Banking is the second biggest employment generator for domestic BPOs. The banking sector employed around 70,100 people in 2008 and by 2012 this is projected to go up to 2,25,900. The two sectors contribute 80 percent of the domestic BPO revenues and is expected that revenues will reach $6 billion by 2012.

According to the report the key driver for BPOs in telecom is demand for customer care and sales and marketing services.

Agencies