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eBay to Sell Skype

Bob2002

ULTIMATE Member
Online auction site eBay is poised to say it has agreed to sell internet phone company Skype, reports say.

Skype is expected to be sold to a group of private investors, including Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and private equity firms.

EBay has been trying to sell Skype for some time, and has said that Skype had "limited synergies" with it.

When eBay bought Skype for $2.6bn (£1.6bn) in October 2005, many analysts thought the price was too high.


The New York Times said that a price has not been named, but that eBay had been seeking about $2bn for Skype.

Earlier this year, eBay had said that it planned to spin off Skype and list its shares in the first half of 2010, an announcement many took as a signal that the firm was for sale.

Skype's software lets computer and mobile phone users talk to each other for free and make cut-price calls to mobiles and landlines.

Unlike traditional mobile calls, which are transmitted over a cellular network, Skype turns your voice into data and sends it over the internet.

Since being acquired, the number of registered Skype users has risen to 405 million from 53 million, though free user-to-user calls still dominate the service.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8231072.stm

Skype is expected to make more than $600 million in revenue this year so it's not doing too badly even if eBay no longer want them. :hrmph:
 
Skype is expected to make more than $600 million in revenue this year so it's not doing too badly even if eBay no longer want them. :hrmph:

High revenue does not necessarily equate to high profit. They don't own an essential part of the software - that is merely licensed from the original creators and is currently subject of expensive litigation - plus they are developing their own version in case they lose. Add in staff costs, tax, bandwidth etc, and profit might not be such an impressive figure.

Profit per user will also be low, since an awful lot of people use it for free skype-to-skype calls only
 
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