Skype Revenue Up 20 Percent To $860M In 2010; Paid Users Up 19 Percent. As the company prepares for a public offering in the next year, Skype released an updated S-1 filing that includes several new revenue, income and usage numbers.
As you may have heard, Skype initially filed for an IPO registration statement with the SEC, with the maximum proposed offering amount listed as $100 million (that is a placeholder amount.) It was thought that the IPO would take place early this year, but apparently the company’s newly appointed CEO Tony Bates is looking for more time to get Skype “in better shape.” Skype says that it has grown its average monthly connected users by 38% (to 145 million average monthly connected users) and has grown average monthly paying users by 19%, from the three months ended December 31, 2009 to the three months ended December 31, 2010. Average monthly paying users have increased from 7.3 million to 8.8 million users, and Skype is seeing an average of $97 in revenue per paying user.
Fred Wilson Dot VC. Skype Files For $100 Million IPO, Only 6 Percent Of Users Pay. Preparing for an eventual public offering, Skype has now filed an IPO registration statement with the SEC.
The maximum proposed offering amount is listed as $100 million, but that is just a placeholder amount. According to the filing, Skype’s revenues for the first six months of 2010 were $406 million, with a net income of only $13 million. But a big portion of that was from interest income. That is only a 3 percent net margin, and this isn’t exactly a new business.
Its income from operations was only $1.4 million for the six months. On the IPO road show, Skype will no doubt point to its adjusted EBITDA (earnings before income taxes and depreciation) numbers, which conveniently strip out things like goodwill, stock-based compensation and litigation expenses. Big Tech IPO of the Day: Skype Tries to Dial Up $100 Million. After Demand, the deluge.
Here comes the next big brand-name public offering: Skype, which used to be owned by eBay (EBAY) but was sold off to an investment consortium last fall, is going back on the public market again. The Internet communications company says it will raise up to $100 million in the offering. The investment group that bought the company for more than $1.9 billion last year includes Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. UPDATE: Someone who wants to remain anonymous suggests that the $100 million “Proposed Maximum Aggregate Offering Price” that Skype’s owners have filed with the SEC is merely a placeholder.
Which means the company may ultimately seek to raise much more. Unlike Demand Media, Skype is profitable–in the first six months of this year, it netted $13 million on revenues of $406 million. And as with Demand, Goldman Sachs (GS) is leading this one too. Registration Statement on Form S-1. Peter Kafka: Skype is classic freemium:... How Skype Plans to Grow Its Business. Skype told potential investors in its first IPO filing today that it plans to grow its business by adding users, offering premium features like group video chat, increasing the number of business users that log in to its service, and adding new monetization models, such as ads.
Already, Skype has grown substantially over the last year, reporting in its S-1 that its user base increased to 560 million at the end of June from 397 million a year earlier. The number of users that connect has increased substantially as well, with average monthly connected users increasing to 124 million from 91 million in the past year. While paying customers represent a small percentage of its overall user base, that number has grown as well, to 8.1 million at the end of June from 6.6 million a year ago. All this growth has led to a pretty substantial increase in revenues. Skype pulled in $406.2 million in the first six months of this year, up 25 percent from $324.8 million in the first half of 2009. Skype Spent $343.8 Million To Acquire Its P2P Software From Founders.