Skype jumps on the IPO bandwagon

With more than 560 million registered users and one of the most disruptive technologies the telecommunications industry has ever faced, Skype Technologies S.A. is now ready to take things public.
The company, which has gone through a fair share of suitors and would-be sellers, filed its plans for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission today.
Skype intends to raise as much as $100 million through the offering. The filing also shined some new light on the state of Skype’s business. It’s user base has jumped nearly 30% from 397 million in June 2009 to 560 million at the end of June 2010. Average monthly connected users has also jumped in kind, climbing nearly 27% from 91 million a year ago to at least 124 million today. Revenue is an entirely other issue though. Less than 1.5% of Skype’s users are paying customers. Only 8.1 million of its customers are paying for the service, but on average they are paying $96 a year for the service, according to the filing. The pool of paying customers has jumped as well, from 6.6 million a year ago to 8.1 million at the end of June.
The VoIP provider, which was launched in 2003, was sold to eBay Inc. (EBAY) for $2.6 billion in 2005. After dragging on eBay’s bottom line for years, the company finally sold a 70% stake in the company to a private investor group, which included Skype’s co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, for $1.9 billion.