NEWS
The sinking economy has actually been a good thing for internet telephony service Skype.
Scott Durchslag, the company's chief operating officer, told reporters during a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that Skype is actually seeing a surge in new users as people look for ways to cut their phone bills.
Durchslag said: "We are seeing consumer take-up of Skype accelerating because people feel they can get value and quality without making a huge trade off. And we're seeing a whole new opportunity in the business market, as companies that I'd never have thought would be a target for Skype are pro-actively coming to us and asking for a solution."
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Skype, which is owned by eBay, offers downloadable software that allows people to make free calls to other Skype users and low-cost calls to mobile phones and regular phones. The service also offers free video chat. The company boasts it now has more than 370 million registered users. It's been adding about 30 million subscribers a quarter, Durchslag said. And these users are making lots of phones calls. Today, about eight per cent of the world's voice minutes originate from a Skype call, he said.
All told, Durchslag said Skype has been growing about 50 per cent compared to the previous year in almost every metric from minutes used, to new subscribers to revenues. He also said the company just had its seventh straight quarter of profitability.
All this is happening while other technology companies are hunkering down for a long, dark recession. Meanwhile, Skype is looking to expand its services and address new markets. In particular, the company sees opportunity to develop special services for the business market, offer more video, and expand its presence on mobile phones.
As part of this effort, the company announced that an enhanced version of its software Skype 4.0, which drastically improves the quality of voice and video, will finally come out of beta in February. It also announced it will be offering its Skype software for mobile devices preloaded on Google Android phones along with about 100 Java-enabled handsets.
Skype is still not available for Apple's iPhone but Durchslag said an iPhone version will be available in the App Store, someday.
He said in an interview after the press conference: "We have to make sure the call quality is there and the application works really well before we can announce the software for any device. But we will have something for the iPhone as soon as it's perfect."
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. Chtis Stevens
Skype may be cheaper, but when things go wrong there is only support by email and they warn you to expect to wait at least 4 working days before getting a response.
In my experience the quality of the voice calls to PSTN is "unpredictable".
2. Daz Hughes
Skype may be popular because it's easy, but again like many easy solutions (iPods, Windows etc) it is proprietory. And with locked-in technology comes risk.
Really good VoIP technologies like SIP are being rolled out by major suppliers, phone companies and handset/softphone manufactures, even built in to mobile phone handsets and these open standards allow all sorts of choices. And if I don't like the service being offered by phone company A, I can go to company B. No such luck if you have a Skype enabled phone/PC.
3. anonymous
I am impressed by the convenience and facilities of Skype but the lack of a quick response to technical queries follows Ebay U.K. who also have poor service dependant on only email, unlike Ebay USA who have on-line chat facilites. As usual, the U.K. offers sub-standard service. Why is the U.K. so poor in supporting their technology?
4. Charles Smith
I use Skype. As I type it has 13 Million users connected, though not necessarily active. The 370 Million registered users is misleading.
Their version 4 software was rejected by the users during beta testing and they have had to go back for a substantial rework.
It is very much a consumer product and Skype has a very poor Support paradigm that effectively disqualifies it from any serious commercial usage.
5. Chris Goodman
I have been using Skype since it first became available and it has improved in leaps and bounds. I have had very few "failures" which, considering the transmission media and method, is remarkable. And it must be remembered that, on the odd occasion of a Skype problem, being already connected to a PSTN, one can always just revert temporarily to standard telephony. I've happily used Skype from many parts of the world.