A new beginning
Almost a year after eBay sold-off 65 percent of Skype, having concluded that internet telephony and online car-boot sales don't mix, the VoIP giant has announced its IPO (initial public offering) through which it's hoping to raise $100 million.
In a filing with the US SEC, Luxembourg-based Skype said it was offering American depositary shares (used to list foreign companies on US stock markets) and will be listed on the NASDAQ. The $100 million it hopes to raise with only represent a small fraction of the total value of the company - estimated to be in the region of $2.7 billion at the time of the eBay sale.
Among the details revealed in the filing are:
- During the first half of 2010, our users made 95 billion minutes of voice and video calls using Skype, video calls accounted for approximately 40% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes, and our users sent over 84million SMS text messages through Skype.
- From June30, 2009 to June30, 2010, we grew our registered users from 397million to 560 million. From the three months ended June30, 2009 to the three months ended June30, 2010, we grew our average monthly connected users from 91million to 124million and our average monthly paying users from 6.6million to 8.1 million.
- In the first six months of 2010, we generated $406.2 million of net revenues, and our Adjusted EBITDA was $115.8 million.
Skype revealed that its primary source of revenue was the purchase of SkypeOut credits for premium services. As well as continuing to grow its user-base, Skype said it plans to grow revenue by improving awareness of its premium services, generating a larger proportion of its revenues from marketing services and licensing, and attracting more business users.
