INDIA'S burgeoning call centre industry, which has drawn thousands of jobs from Britain, is heading for contraction within the next two years, according to a new report published today.
The boom in outsourcing sales, customer services and other telephone work to low-paid, English-speaking Indians has generated competition that is driving down prices and pushing up pay, market analyst Datamonitor said in its study.

The report says newcomers to the market are aggressively discounting to grab a share of the £255 million business, resulting in shrinking margins and raising questions as to who will survive.

Datamonitor said a "shake-out" is inevitable within two or three years, and its report predicted this it will largely be driven by consulting companies exiting the market, and either spinning off their contact centre operations or turning over the management of their customer care services to third parties.