Telephone Call Centers Industry Profile

Companies in this industry operate telephone call centers that provide telemarketing, customer care, and other outsourced business services on a contract basis. Major companies include Alorica, Conduent, Concentrix, FoundEver, and TeleTech (all based in the US), as well as Atento (Spain), Teleperformance (France), and Transcom Worldwide (Luxembourg).

The global call center revenue is estimated to reach $390 billion in 2024. By 2029, it is expected that the global call center revenue will reach more than $490 billion, according to Statista.

The US telephone call center industry includes about 5,300 establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $22 billion.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand is largely driven by consumer spending and business activity. The profitability of individual companies depends on efficiency of operations. Big companies have the scale to provide services to large corporate customers. Small companies can compete successfully for small and mid-sized customers, because there are few economies of scale. The US industry is concentrated: the top 50 companies account for about 50% of revenue.

Companies in the industry may lose business to potential customers that choose to conduct call center operations in house; they may also compete with business process outsourcing (BPO) and IT services companies. The industry has been sharply affected in recent years by regulatory controls on telemarketing practices and strong competition from offshore operators, though geopolitical uncertainty presents an opportunity for reshoring ...