Skype 90% Free, revenue 900Mil
 

Saw this on Japanese TV. Core business is free (no shit) and the other 10% produces $900mil rev.

It's very hard to convince most backers there's so much much money in "free", they just don't understand the business concept.

Well they got a huge audience by offering something that's functional (although already existed before), spread the news and the brand out there, and then they offer you to purchase add ons that only cost a couple bucks, like having your own number, voice box, credit to call land lines etc.. - good plan and good execution.

I wonder what is the profit and how much did they have to invest into development etc. before turning profit.

Nothing's free.

Who else can give me 10,000 minutes to phones and landlines abroad for a measly £3.50 a month?

That's why Skype is minted, they offer a desirable service for next to nothing and still make profits.

Now if we can apply that to porn...

hell.. they are setting up with skype phones now..

900mil rev.. but what is their overhead like? I assume *very* high

i guess ebay made the right call when they bought it for 2.5b.

get it, right call...yuk yuk.

As stated before I'd guess the expense ratio is very high on that 900mill.

Ebay is looking to sell Skype already for such a long time ... Google didn't want it ... so I think that revenue isn't giving them much profit

isn't that just speculation?

when you think about how many people all over the world use skype, it really only boils down to about maybe $5 a user if that.

revenue doesn't mean much, they could be losing $$ for all we know...

skype was developed by same folks who developed kazaa p2p sharing software. two founders and 3 developers. kazaa must have made them little fortune

in 2005 it was sold to ebay for 2.6 billion. next year ebay reported 1.7 billion loss for skype
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype

Yeah I had a feeling I read something like that, it's also impossible to find any actual "profit" data

Interesting read

http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/sky...terly-revenue/
http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress....ypeQ3slide.png

Skype is the shit, have been using it for oversea calls for years.

i dont think it grew like they were expecting

It depends on the market... on continental Europe, most Telcos already bundle free international calling with their internet and TV deals. So Skype doesn't get much of a look in. :2 cents:

That's revenue. What about net income?

There is GOOD money in FREE

There has always been money in FREE

I just signed up biatches!

They just sold 70% for about what they paid for the whole thing. 1.9 bil and 125 mil. dollar note. They expect an 16-18% growth next year in earnings which matches last year so skype was about breaking even from the looks of it.

thats the point

Simply because, not "every" product is capable of doing it. Lets be real here.. the main reason anyone uses Skype is for the internet phone. The other stuff that is "free" is just extra fluff.

Skype wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as it is nor making that kind of money if it wasn't for the internet phone and ability to have a phone number. Both of which they charge for and don't offer free.

If they didn't have the phone service it would just be another of the long list of chat programs fighting for a place in the market.