Last quarter 2008 results

By Jean Mercier, Skype Numerologist and regular Skype Journal contributor

Skype revenue growth is flattening. It increased only by 1.2% in $US, and about 3.7% in Euros. In the eBay slides they say “On an fx neutral basis Skype revenue accelerated 5 pts” (fx neutral means “foreign currency neutral basis”). Considering the economic crisis, this isn’t too bad.

I am however surprised about the weak revenue increase, because SkypeOut minutes rose by 18%. And SkypeOut minutes means revenue. If most people were still calling (like I do) on a “per minute” cost, revenue should have risen proportionally. Therefore, this probably means that most people call through a fixed price “calling plan.” Could it be that, from an economical point of view, this is a "too low" margin product?

More spectacular is the growth of the Skype to Skype minutes: this rose by 28%. The economic crisis could have helped to obtain this, because this is completely free, including webcam calling!

One could, however, expect some revenue increase from Skype certified products (headphones, webcams, etc.). Personally I think this is a dying revenue stream because, certified or not, most webcams and headphones and other devices work with Skype! Why should a manufacturer therefore transfer part of its income to Skype?

User accounts continue to show a quite linear growth. I would have expected a stronger growth last quarter, for the same “economy crisis” reason.

Revenue per user account (or should I say username?) shows a decaying tendency. But, as I said in the past, this is a very misleading metric, because it includes all usernames created from the beginning, including “dead” accounts and multiple accounts of one user. Pity that Skype doesn’t publish the number of active accounts!

Next quarter could be better, because I see a quite spectacular increase of concurrent users online, and this will for sure influence indirectly the revenue stream.