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As Doug McIntyre mentioned earlier today, eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) will soon start charging users of its Skype VoIP (Voice over IP) service $30 per year to use the service. I have expected this for quite some time, as eBay ponied up over $2 billion for the company. At some point it needs to accelerate the process of receiving a return on that investment beyond the current subscribers who pay for "SkypeIn" and "SkypeOut" Internet phone calls (an incoming telephone number and an outgoing any-number call capability, respectively).What I am most interested here is how Skype customers will react to this situation. While everyone (I imagine) loves a free lunch, eBay shareholders are probably more interested in seeing the company's cash hoard grow even larger than it is (the company has over $3 billion in cash) and for some good to come from the Skype acquisition.
While eBay's acquisition of PayPal was a great decision and a perfect move for the time, many of us questioned why eBay would purchase a VoIP company like Skype. Are legions of its customers really using Skype to perform chats during auctions? That's hard to believe -- but maybe it's true. Yet, eBay has provided no proof.
The new eBay plan looks to charge Skype users with a yearly fee of $30 for unlimited calls to land-line and wireless numbers in the U.S. and Canada. Skype-to-Skype calls will still be free (for now), but eBay's new unlimited fee for its SkypeOut service actually is not that bad, considering all you get.
For less than a month of typical cellular service, you can call anytime to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for $30 a year. I wonder if this will spur another generation of WiFi handsets with built-in Skype so folks near wireless Internet hotspots can use their Skype accounts on the go. The current generation of these devices are pretty lowly, as described by customer reviewers at Amazon.com.
For less than a month of typical cellular service, you can call anytime to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for $30 a year. I wonder if this will spur another generation of WiFi handsets with built-in Skype so folks near wireless Internet hotspots can use their Skype accounts on the go. The current generation of these devices are pretty lowly, as described by customer reviewers at Amazon.com.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-13-2006 @ 12:54PM
crystal ball said...
I have never used Skype, but with regards to the $30 price tag, you might want to do some more research on the multitude business issues that are implicated in the bottom of your article... like Skype's business relationships with cell phone carriers, cell phone manufacturers, and Internet service providers.
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I wonder if this will spur another generation of WiFi handsets with built-in Skype so folks near wireless Internet hotspots can use their Skype accounts on the go. The current generation of these devices are pretty lowly, as described by customer reviewers at Amazon.com.
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One of the statistics touted by the Skype cheerleaders is Skype's super low acquisition costs for each of its customers (but I don't know what the actual acquisition cost is because I'm not a Skype cheerleader). However, what due you suppose is going to happen to Skype's acquisition costs when consumers have to pay $30 more per year to receive Skype's full functionality. I think Skype's customer acquisition costs are going to go up.