Foreign demand feeds website development frenzy in Philippines

Local tech startup and website development firm Web Powerhouse is aiming for an expansion this year amid a huge demand for this kind of service from the overseas market.

Web Powerhouse chief executive Richard Pines told reporters they were aiming to triple the number of employees they have, which currently stands at six, to accommodate the strong demand from abroad.

“But we’re trying to scale and close more clients this year and scale bigger than ever,” Pines said in a media briefing.

According to the company executive, the annual revenue potential of this business is in the tens of millions of dollars for a small team like theirs, which is into developing websites for around $5,000 or roughly P250,000. He said revenues could be bigger with a larger team.

Pines said most of their clients were from the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, but added they also do services for smaller clients in the Philippines.

Asked whether he considers the rise of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered website makers as a threat to the industry, Pines downplayed the prospect and highlighted the opportunities for website developers who aimed to use the emerging technology.

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“The thing is, people think that AI is a threat, that I’m going to be losing my job because of AI. But the truth is, people will lose their jobs to people who know how to use AI,” Pines said.

“And so, what we did is instead of being averse to AI, we actually adopted AI,” he also said.

By doing this, the Web Powerhouse executive said they were able to cut down the turnaround time of creating a website from six months to just a week.