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January 24, 2008... Skype's quarterly financial results. What the numbers mean.
eBay reported its quarterly financial results yesterday. In that report, as usual, was a tabulation of Skype revenues and registered Skype names. It is notable, I suppose, that eBay says that Skype is profitable, but they don't offer any details on expenses so all we really have for purposes of analysis are revenues.
Here are the quarterly results, with my "real users" thrown in to give some perspective. Notice how revenue-per-user has been in a steady upward trend from quarter to quarter.
| Quarterly Report | Reported Revenue | Real Users | Revenue per "Real User" | Skype "Names" | Revenue per Name |
| 1-Oct-06 | $50,000,000 | 19,017,722 | $2.63 | 136,000,000 | $0.37 |
| 1-Jan-07 | $66,000,000 | 21,509,023 | $3.07 | 171,000,000 | $0.39 |
| 1-Apr-07 | $79,000,000 | 23,817,319 | $3.32 | 196,000,000 | $0.40 |
| 1-Jul-07 | $90,000,000 | 23,946,787 | $3.76 | 220,000,000 | $0.41 |
| 1-Oct-07 | $98,000,000 | 24,187,325 | $4.05 | 246,000,000 | $0.40 |
| 1-Jan-08 | $115,000,000 | 27,518,590 | $4.18 | 276,000,000 | $0.42 |
Now imagine in 3 years that "real users" rises to 50 million from its present 30 million (not unreasonable), and further that revenue per user rises to $52 per year, which is still just a small fraction of what Telecoms and Cable companies charge for VOIP services... Those two simple and very conservative assumptions produce $2.6 BILLION in annual revenue! This I think is why eBay bought Skype.
| Year | Revenue | Real Users | Revenue per "Real User" |
| 2007 | $382,000,000 | 24,867,505 (average) | $15.36 |
| 2010 (??) | $2,600,000,000 | 50,000,000 | $52.00 |