Newspaper publishers, graphic design companies and publishing BPOs in India are gearing up to grab a slice of the USD3.5billion newspaper outsourcing market.

ValueNotes Database, an Indian business intelligence and research company, has released a research report, "Offshoring by US Newspaper Publishers: To understand the opportunities for buyers and vendors in the newspaper-publishing sector".

Arun Jethmalani, the CEO of ValueNotes, says, "Currently, offshoring has been initiated by tier 1 newspaper publishers in the US, and is largely limited to advertising production services. However, as service providers mature, we believe that tier 2 and 3 publishers will also send work to India. This trend is set to gain traction in the next few years."

ValueNotes Outsourcing Practice has estimated India's share of the market at $35 million in 2008. "The current Indian penetration into this market stands at around 1%. We estimate the revenues to grow to $120 million and manpower to grow to over 5,500 by 2012," said ValueNotes.

The majority of cost overheads of publishers can be outsourced, however, offshoring provides maximum leverage for advertising production services since it is easier to provide from India.

According to Jethmalani, the offshore vendor landscape is at a nascent stage with only a handful of service providers in India actively focusing on the newspaper segment. These providers include, Express KCS, Affinity Express, 2AdPro and Mindworks.

Source: Financial Express via IFRA Executive News Service