Teleperformance trims 2023 revenue target, ups margin goal

(Reuters) -French outsourcing and call centre group Teleperformance on Tuesday slightly lowered its 2023 revenue outlook, citing negative currency effects and the move of some of its North American activities to offshore centres.

Teleperformance, which employs more than 420,000 call centre workers worldwide, said it now expected like-for-like revenue growth, excluding contracts for online services acquired during the COVID-19 pandemic, of between 8% and 10%, down from previous guidance of about 10%.

It raised, however, its target for earnings before interest tax, depreciation and amortisation margin to about 16% from 15.7% previously.

For the first quarter, Teleperformance reported revenues of slightly over 2 billion euros ($2.19 billion) a 1.9% like-for-like increase from a year ago.

Performance in the first three months of the year "was notably driven by the accelerated expansion of offshore activities," and China’s reopening, the company's chairman and chief executive Daniel Julien said.

Teleperformance said the shifting of some services to India and the Philippines weighed on U.S. activities helped margins but had "a slightly negative impact on regional revenue."

($1 = 0.9116 euros)

(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi and Victor Goury-Laffont in GdanskEditing by David Goodman and Tomasz Janowski)