Ebay to buy skype for $2 - 3Billion?

[Nickatilynx]

By The Associated Press
10:52 AM EDT Thu. Sep. 08, 2005 </FONT>

eBay is in talks to buy Internet-telephone company Skype Technologies for $2 billion to $3 billion, according to a published report.

Skype chief executive and co-founder Niklas Zennstrom declined to comment Thursday on the Wall Street Journal report.

"There are different rumors every day," Zennstrom told The Associated Press by telephone. "We don't comment on rumors. When we make deals, we announce them."

Earlier this year, the industry was abuzz after a British newspaper reported that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. had explored a $3 billion offer for the company, which was founded by a Swedish entrepreneur. Skype's signature program lets computer users call each other online for free anywhere in the world.

[pushpills]

google is getting into internet phone communications, and vonage is offering and ipo.

will be some interesting competition.

[Rolo]

A bit pricey...

$3 billion : 162 million "downloads" (not registered users) = $18.51 per downloaded version
$3 billion : 53 million "registered users" (not paying users) = $56.60 per registered user
$3 billion : 2 million "paying users" = $1500.00 per paying user

I know of cellphone companies that have paid $250-300 per paying user, and they had high profits on the per minute billing... skype is selling a small profit margin minutes and is getting $1500 per paying user. I can see how its not a telco company that is bidding the $3 billion - they must be looking for something more to make this a good business. And you can be sure that MS and Google is getting ready to fight it out in this sector - a very good time to sell if I was Skype.

[Peaches]

Damn! Dumb question - Skype is free, no?

[RyanLanane]

A bit pricey...

$3 billion : 162 million "downloads" (not registered users) = $18.51 per downloaded version
$3 billion : 53 million "registered users" (not paying users) = $56.60 per registered user
$3 billion : 2 million "paying users" = $1500.00 per paying user

I know of cellphone companies that have paid $250-300 per paying user, and they had high profits on the per minute billing... skype is selling a small profit margin minutes and is getting $1500 per paying user. I can see how its not a telco company that is bidding the $3 billion - they must be looking for something more to make this a good business. And you can be sure that MS and Google is getting ready to fight it out in this sector - a very good time to sell if I was Skype.

Rolo, look at it this way ...

Where do you 'think' all the major telephone companies with land lines as the majority of their business will be in 10 years?

Answer : They will not be around or will have been bought out by Internet Providers. The smart phone companies that got heavy into the internet like SBC will survive and go with the new technology.... The majority of phone companies will go out of business. There will no longer be a need for a traditional phone line as 90% of America (or more) will be using the phone through the internet.. So unless their internet provider is the phone company.. Buh Bye.

My 2 cents anyways...

[Rolo]

Skype P2P is free, but when calling "real" phone numbers, then it cost money (from $0.021 per minute). So the real power of Skype is the P2P function which attracts people - just as napster, which was made by the same people. However getting paying users out of "freeloaders" ;-))) - well that looks like it happens 1 out 26... not sure how they make money of those 25 that does not pay - maybe they are just used as "bait" to get more people to signup. P2P have very low maintenance cost - the real cost is in acquisition, which is why the Ebay offer looks pricey.

[sudden]

Skype charges if you want a real phone number (or 3), or if you want to
make calls to regular phones. Something like 3 EURO per month for a real phone number and 2.3 cents per minute to most european/north american countries.

$3 billion is insane for Skype, even though they have the momentum going, they can still get killed eventually by Yahoo, MSN, Google. They're not netting enough to warrant a $3 billion purchase by far, it's surely mostly based on potential.

[Nickatilynx]

Skype charges if you want a real phone number (or 3), or if you want to
make calls to regular phones. Something like 3 EURO per month for a real phone number and 2.3 cents per minute to most european/north american countries.

$3 billion is insane for Skype, even though they have the momentum going, they can still get killed eventually by Yahoo, MSN, Google. They're not netting enough to warrant a $3 billion purchase by far, it's surely mostly based on potential.

aha!!!got the nerve to post , huh!!

;-))

[Rolo]

$3 billion is insane for Skype, even though they have the momentum going, they can still get killed eventually by Yahoo, MSN, Google. They're not netting enough to warrant a $3 billion purchase by far, it's surely mostly based on potential.

I agree... I was actual hoping for Google to buy Skype, but I can see now why they choosed to make their own "Google Talk"... it will not cost Google $3 billion to make "Google Talk" and get 162 million downloads.

I wonder how much of that $3 billion is in cash vs. stocks :)

[Newton]

Skype exists for mobiles ;)

[Rolo]

Do Skype own any patents? Anything that can not be copied?

[Newton]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/wp-mobile.php?p=492&more=1

I believe there are some open source projects out there too ;)

[Carrie]

Maybe the freebie users have to look at ads while they're making the free P2P calls?
I dunno. I'd never heard of them before reading this article. (Unless they've got internet calling products under other names and they're the parent company, maybe I've heard of the product names.)

Google's got a huge and very loyal userbase; anything they offer at this point has got a damn good future if run correctly.

eBay also has a huge userbase, but it's not loyal, and it's pretty niched - I'm not sure how they're planning on presenting a crossover to their users from selling nicnacs to buying/setting up/using a microphone* to make phone calls, but I wish them the best.

*Especially when their users are used to having portable phones that let them walk around the house; a headset limits you to 4'-6' from your computer unless you go for the much more expensive wireless system. Also many of the users are still dial-up which depends on their phone line, and I'd guess at least half of the ones on broadband are using DSL which also depends on a phone line - so they're not going to see the point of spending the money and going through all that trouble to save a penny per minute when they've already got a phone.

It'll be a while before landlines are dinosaurs, before fiber optics replaces traditional phone lines, or even before internet connectivity is coming through power lines en masse - in the interim, companies offering VoIP or wireless long-distance deals have a good opportunity to make some cash. Wireless far more than VoIP in the short-term while the other methods come online and start to propogate.

[gold4dinar]

google is getting into internet phone communications, and vonage is offering and ipo.

will be some interesting competition.

free internet voice calls are available on yahoo messenger, msn, aim, icq, google, n2p
msn and icq offer calls to any phone trough n2p platform.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NTOP

[Trev]

free internet voice calls are available on yahoo messenger, msn, aim, icq, google, n2p
msn and icq offer calls to any phone trough n2p platform.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NTOP
Yahoo and BT, the largest phone carrier in the UK run, hand in hand.

[DrGuile]

Nobody sees how p2p conversations and ebay go together?

man.... :blink:


(although the price does seem bubble-esque)

[Rolo]

Ofcourse Ebay got ideas with Skype... but 2.8 billion in stock and cash + 1.3 billion bonus in 2-3 years is alot of money for something which will/are copied by google, ms, yahoo and 100 other guys who started today after seeing the price for Skype ;-))

But if Ebay is happy and Skype is happy, then its win situation for both of them, so who cares what the world thinks (ok, maybe Ebay stock holders will ;-))

[Rolo]

Just to put Skype into perspective... in 2002 someone close to Skype invested $60.000 in the company, today his investment is worth $83.000.000 - not bad :)