Easycall eyes US market for call center services

Easycall Communication Philippines Inc. (ECPI), once the country’s most dominant paging system operator, will be tapping the huge US market for call center operations as the company slowly makes a shift toward information technology (IT)-enabled services.

ECPI president Soc Niro told the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) that they are in discussions for a possible joint venture with some US-based contact center companies. Niro said an agreement is expected soon.

"The company expects this greater emphasis on the US market to bring a substantial increase in revenues and improved profitability in the coming years," she said.

Although ECPI suffered a net loss of P19.7 million in the first quarter of this year, this was 30 percent lower than the P28.3 million loss incurred a year ago, a result of the company’s continuing rationalization program and reduction in depreciation charges during the period.

Niro said while there has been a substantial decline in their paging subscriber base in the past few years, ECPI has expanded into the outsourcing call center business and the Internet and data center market, which has been contributing a larger share in the company’s revenues.

Niro said the revenue share of the call center business to total revenue has increased from seven percent to 42 percent while the share of the Internet business rose from five percent to 17 percent.

"This trend is expected to continue in the coming months considering that the company has started its planned expansion for the foreign contact center outsourcing operations," she added.

Since the expansion into the foreign call center market will require additional funding, ECPI shareholders, including its new strategic investor Global E-Business Solutions Inc., will work out the funding strategy within the next few months, Niro said.

Last year, ECPI increased its authorized capital stock from P200 million to P300 million to accommodate the entry of GEBSI, the Internet arm of the Delgado family’s Transnational Diversified Group.