Skype Shows Signs of Slowing Growth
eBay today turned in a lukewarm performance for the fourth quarter of 2008, posting sales of $2.04 billion vs. an average forecast of $2.12 billion. Earnings per share were a penny better than expected, at 40 cents a share. Amidst all this doom and gloom, it was nice to see Skype, their communications division, show some signs of growth. The big question now is: How long can Skype continue to grow - and keep bringing in much-needed revenues for its parent?
For the quarter, Skype:
But Skype’s growth is clearly slowing: Even though it sold an additional 400 million more minutes, it was able to get a mere $2 million in additional sales, which is a ridiculously tiny amount. In other words, it doesn’t matter how many new people it signs up to the network, or how many more SkypeOut minutes it sells, the opportunity to goose up Skype revenues is virtually non-existent. Now juxtapose this to Skype’s full-year 2008 numbers and you start to see that the trajectory of Skype’s growth is flattening. For the year, Skype posted:
