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Skype, now owned by eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), announced SkypeOut yesterday, which offers 12 months of unlimited Skype calls to any phone within the U.S. and Canada for a flat annual rate.
There have been several posts on Bloggingstocks regarding this new plan. Here are some of the finer details.
People who sign up for the new plan before January 31, 2007 will receive a special discounted introductory rate of $14.95 per year, 50% off the regular price. While Skype to Skype calls will remain free, the new Skype Unlimited Calling plan is an easier and cheaper way for growing numbers of SkypeOut users to stay in touch with friends and family over any phone line. Consumers can also choose SkypeOut as a pay-per-minute offering.
According to Skype's press release, it is the leading Internet voice calling solution in North America, with 11.9 million registered users, as of the end of September.
Supposedly, as measured in November, Skype is the most popular residential VoIP service (29%) among the more than one-in-five (21%) U.S. telecommunications consumers already using VoIP at home. Also, another 13% of U.S. telecommunications consumers plan to adopt VoIP technology within the next 12 months, which means that by the end of 2007, 1 out of 3 consumers will be using VoIP.
From an investment perspective, a big beneficiary of the movement to VoIP will be Level 3 Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: LVLT), since it provides the infrastructure to Skype. Another beneficiary could be eBay, Skype's owner.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-14-2006 @ 11:27PM
Randy Smythe said...
Just a note about Skype. Apparently there is an unconfirmaed rumor that Alex Kazim the President of Skype has left the company and is being replaced by Henry Gomez a former eBay exec who was currently serving as the CMO for Skype.
The report was posted by Om Malick
http://gigaom.com/2006/12/14/henry-gomez-is-the-new-ceo/
If this is true it means that Kazim was only in charge of Skype for 6 months. Stay tuned.
12-15-2006 @ 4:58PM
Randy Smythe said...
Here is an update to the rumor I posted yesterday.
http://gigaom.com/2006/12/15/whos-skypes-daddy-niklas-of-course/
As Om says in his article, it looks like eBay is letting the founder run the business as he sees fit. That $2.6 Billion price tag is looking worse every day. eBay's marketing prowess was supposed make this deal a huge winner.
12-17-2006 @ 12:09AM
yababy said...
Kudos to Meg for recognizing something not working early and letting the founder take over to rectify the situation.
12-17-2006 @ 12:25AM
David Binko said...
===That $2.6 Billion price tag is looking worse every day. eBay's marketing prowess was supposed make this deal a huge winner.====
I would choose the Skype business ...any dat over Youtube for the same price.
Skype seems to be doing pretty good after only 1 year under the Ebay Umbrella.
Skype Facts (borrowed from another thread):
- over 136 million registered users
- at peak times there are over 8 million users
- adding users at 260,000 per day
- over 2 billion call minutes per month
- over 412 million download since launch
- over 3500 developers and over 350 applictions using the API
- over 400 hardware devices incorporate skype
- $200 million revenue for 2006.
I'm glad they made the change quick rather than sit on their ass for 3 years.