Eveready Philippines mulls first BPO center in RP

MANILA, Philippines - Eveready Philippines announced they are mulling the possibility of building their first business process outsourcing (BPO) center here in the country to do logistics, finance and marketing.

In an interview, Eveready Phils president and general manager Esteban Vorbeck said they have no BPO center and the proposed Philippine facility will serve global operations. He said the BPO may be located in Manila since their head office is in Manila. Their battery manufacturing facility is in Cebu.

During the celebration of their 110th anniversary, Vorbeck said Eveready has not raised their prices for three years and is not expected to do so this year. In fact, he said they have even lowered their prices for some variants in order to provide affordability for consumers.

Vorbeck said battery consumption in the country is not high at less than two batteries per person annually. This adds up to 150 million batteries yearly. Our neighboring countries consume three to five batteries per person every year. In spite of this he said Philippines is one of the top five markets in the world.

Vorbeck said the demand for batteries went down a year ago but they have already recovered after posting double digit growth for the first four months of the year. The growth is expected to continue until the end of the year.

For last year, he noted that there was an upward spike in the demand for batteries during the last quarter when typhoons and natural calamities hit the country. In Northern Luzon for instance, he said there was a sudden increase in demand during the last part of the year.

However, he said that in Mindanao demand has been going down because people are living under a prolonged state of calamity. This has significantly decreased their disposable income thus people are unable to afford batteries.

 Eveready and its sister brand Energizer control the local market with 80 percent of the market share. Batteries come from their facility in Cebu which also serve as a buffer plant for Europe, North America and Asia whenever the demand for other countries go up.

Generally, he said the batteries produced in the Philippines are for local consumption but they export if there is a need.