Two years ago, Skype was doing about 13% of all International minutes. One year ago, Skype was doing about 20% of all International minutes. We should find out soon what the research analysts think Skype’s percent of 2011 International minutes is, but I’m guessing it will be over 25%, perhaps even approaching 30% for 2011.
People are even using it as a verb – i.e. “When did you talk to him?” “Well, I Skyped him just now.” And it’s becoming a well known brand. (I figured this out when my parents knew what it was and used it as a verb!) Talk about entering the mainstream.
The real value-add though is in the video calling. According to Skype, 300 million minutes of video calls per day are using Skype, and that’s about 42% of all Skype to Skype minutes.
Since international calling isn’t a great revenue driver for most telcos, all of this isn’t that big of a deal to many folks. However, Skype calls can happen on mobile devices via WiFi or via the over-the-top data. As LTE gets deployed, and the wireless mobile networks get even faster, these kinds of calls will become more commonplace. Couple this with Facetime, and we’re on the cusp of seeing video calling moving from a laptop experience to a truly mobile experience.
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