The battle for market share of Hong Kong's newly deregulated international telephone call sector so far has been waged on high-volume, high-profile routes such as the United States, Canada, the mainland, Taiwan and Britain.
However, a new front is now opening with several companies targeting lower-volume, niche routes where margins are higher.
One such route is the Philippines.
It is among the top 10 routes from Hong Kong, but has much smaller volumes of traffic than the minutes going to destinations such as the mainland and North America.
The economics seem to make it an attractive target.
There are estimated to be about 150,000 Philippines residents working in the SAR. Studies have found they will spend a large proportion of their salaries on calling home.
Industry estimates suggest an average figure of possibly about $400 a month, giving a total outward value of calls on the Hong kong-Philippines route of about $15 million a week.