The VoIP and instant messaging software which was acquired by eBay for $2.6 billion in September 2005, is now experiencing rapid growth of over 380,000 new users joining the free service every day. On the other hand, Facebook is growing at a rate of an astounding 600,000 users daily and there are now more than 150 million active users. Skype announced that the end-of-year head count of 405 million registered users use 2.6 billion SkypeOut minutes in the fourth quarter last year and nearly a third of its registered subscribers now use it for business purposes. Skype generates revenue through its premium offerings, such as calls made to and from landlines and mobiles, voicemail, call forwarding, and SMS.
It has just released the Skype 4.0 version for Windows which includes useful features such as face-to-face video calling, improved call quality and make it easy for users to set up your headset, microphone and webcam in just a few simple steps. The Skype 4.0 took three years to develop and offers “super wideband audio.”
“This is just the latest example of how Skype is continuing to innovate and improve its software to deliver an even better voice and video calling experience,” said Bartlett. “The combination of feedback from tens of thousands of users over the last two years of development has allowed us to create a truly amazing experience that puts the focus on bringing people closer together even when they are continents apart.”