India call centre revenues to touch Rs 8,500 cr

Domestic call centre revenues will touch Rs 8,500 crore in the current financial year, according to a CyberMedia's Dataquest domestic call centre survey 2007-08.

According to the study, the Indian call centre industry will witness a robust growth rate of 65 per cent compared with 42 per cent recorded in the previous year.

Captive call centres, which operate to service a company's own clients, accounted for 70 per cent of the total industry revenues at Rs 5,200 crore in 2006-07. The outsourced call centre industry, which services the needs of third-party clients, contributed Rs 1,602 crore.

The outsourced call centre industry is dominated by the organised sector or players employing more than 200 people. While the organised sector contributed Rs 1,097 crore, revenues from unorganised players were Rs 505 crore.

The study said telecom, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector players accounted for 80 per cent of the domestic outsourced call centre business.

Telecom majors Bharti, Vodafone, BSNL, Spice and Idea have outsourced their call centre services. Retail, travel, hospitality and healthcare will drive future growth in the domestic call centre industry, the study said.

This growth will be driven by tier-II and tier-III cities due to lower margins of profit in the domestic business. The study said the average realisation in the outsourced industry was between Rs 15,000 and Rs 22,000 per person a month.

The starting salary in a domestic call centre, which ranges between Rs 4,000 and Rs 7,500, depends on the location with tier-I cities offering Rs 6,000 compared with Rs 4,500 in tier-II cities.

Prasanto K Roy, chief editor, Dataquest, Cybermedia Group, said: "The government and citizen services are growing rapidly. As the market enters a phase when players will have to rapidly scale up, the industry needs to focus on attracting, retaining and developing manpower."