Call 11890, the directory enquiries company set up last year, is extending its offer of free services for landline callers until the end of the month in a bid to raise its profile and increase its share of the overall market.

The free service, which was launched in February, is part of the group's plan to increase its share of the €70 million market to 10 per cent by 2008.

The company currently has about 5 per cent of the directory enquiries market.

For this purpose, the company is investing as much as €3.5 million in the promotion, including €1 million worth of television and radio advertising.

Since launching the free service last month, Call 11890 says that its share of the market has increased from 3 to 5 per cent.

This, it says, means that it is on track to meet its 10 per cent target by next year, although it remains to be seen whether people will continue to use the service once it is no longer free.

Increasing its share of the market to 10 per cent will enable the group to raise its turnover from about €2 million to €7 million, said Nicola Byrne, the company's founder and managing director.

Call 11890 opened in Clonshaugh, Dublin, in July last year. In October, it opened a second call centre in Galway and took on 70 more staff.

It plans to create another 80 new jobs over the next 18 months and is currently investigating the possibility of opening a third call centre in Cork.

Call 11890 competes directly with Eircom's 11811 enquiry service and 11850, which was sold by Conduit to venture capital group Investcorp and US directory assistance provider InfoNXX in April last year.

Call 11890 claims that its service is 26-35 per cent cheaper than those offered by its two rivals.

The company currently only offers a service for people looking for Irish-based phone numbers, but it says that this will change as the business grows.

Growth so far has been underpinned by its business to business offering, which is due to feature a new premier business listing service and a business listings directory in the future.

Call 11890 already has a number for the British market registered, but has not yet gone live with the service.