In my last post i made the following guess (see below): there is almost a saturation of Skype users in rich countries, and this is the title of a paper of CNNMoney.com:Skype Seeks New Revenue Source As PC Downloads Near Saturation. This was told by Manrique Brenes, Skype's director of hardware business development, to Dow Jones Newswires! Therefore he confirms my "Saturation Speculation"!
Focusing on the synergy between other kinds of hardware and Skype, could bring some revenue, but in the short term this will, in my humble opinion, not be very spectacular.
I still believe they should find a way to attract bigger multinationals: this would definitely boost the Skype usage.
9 comments:
You criticise Skype for using the registered user numbers as the proof of exponential growth of Skype. Then to prove your "speculation" you rely on download numbers. What percentage of the population of the so called "rich countries" are using Skype that makes you "speculate" the saturation point for Skype downloads. The average download numbers have not reduced in any meaningful way. The only important number is the on-line user numbers and that is obviously continuing to grow. Skype has established itself as the leader of VOIP communication. It can and will grow exponentially as the result of pyramid effect of each user bringing many more new users to the system. I think that Ebay should not rush into monetizing Skype too aggressively because it could backfire. It is obvious that this baby has got a long way to grow and given the right atmosphere it will find all the nourishment it needs to grow may be give birth many wonderful off-springs! Lets hope so!
Kavous UK
Hey Kavous,
Are you Skype Staff?
You say "Then to prove your "speculation" you rely on download numbers".
I think you should read more attentively! I DON'T SAY THIS, Manrique Brenes, Skype's director of hardware business development says this!!!!!! He uses "inside" information that i don't have. I used "website" visits to make the same "speculation"!
I agree the only measure we have publicly available on a daily basis is the number of concurrent users online. And this is indeed obviously continuing to grow, but not as fast as in the past, although i was surprised in the beginning of the week that we already had reached 11 million concurrent users (i expected this for the beginning of February!). So, indeed this is a year that begins with good news. Let us hope this will continue!
And i will continue to criticize Skype each time they use the number of registered user ACCOUNTS as equal to USERS. This is false information.
Hi Jean, its been a while.
Have you noticed that despite some level of saturation (like you say), we are at 11.39 million concurrent users today?
I was wondering if you have any explanation for the sudden rise in peak concurrent users the last couple of weeks.
Could it be the MySpace deal?
Hello OnlyeBay,
To be honest i am quite surprised about the growth the last two weeks.
It could be an "after Holiday period" effect, or it could be indeed some other effects like the MySpace deal.
Too early to say ...
Perhaps no saturation after all? Lets wait some more time to speculate.
We actually reached 11.566 million peak concurrent users today.
Like you say, it could be the last wave of people coming back from holiday and excited about using their new computers, new webcams, new broadband.
It could also be people upgrading their MySpace IM which includes Skype. I don't use MySpace but I wonder if people have to actively select Skype or whether it is bundled into the software so everybody that upgrades gets it.
Last thing I can think of is update of Skype To Go. I have used this a lot the past few days but I think it is a very small minority that subscribe to this.
Anyway, good news for the Skype community.
I also saw the 11.566 million.
If we add another half a million next week, it will have been the fastest million ever!
But i don't believe in miracles ;-)
11.85 million
I am starting to think miracles happen. this could be the fastest million ever.
Next week?
Because today wasn't a success!
I hope so, a boost would be welcome!
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