Users who want to call home from abroad are increasingly using the Internet phone service Skype to the detriment of international operators, according to new data show.
"Skype is now the largest cross-border communications provider in the world, by far," said Stephan Beckert, an analyst at research firm TeleGeography.
Skype technology allows consumers to make long distance calls through fixed-line Internet practically for free.
It is mainly used in laptops, but Skype has entered the mobile market and now comes preloaded on some devices.
According to the company during the past 25 years, the volume of international calls has grown at a compound annual rate of 15%. In the past two years, however, this growth has fallen to only 8%, growing from 376,000 million minutes in 2008 to estimated 406,000 minutes last year.
In comparison, the traffic between Skype users grew 51% in 2008 and is projected to grow by 63% in 2009 to 54,000 million minutes. "The volume of traffic over Skype is tremendous," said Beckert.
Slowdown
In general, TeleGeography says, "demand for international voice has been great, but is clearly not impervious to recession."
Established in 2003 and headquartered in Luxembourg, the privately held company has more than 520 million registered users who use the service free voice, video or text via the Internet.
But despite their size, their income is relatively modest-about $ 551 million in 2008 - because the company has had difficulties at the moment to make their users pay for their free services for the most part.
Skype wants to nearly double their annual income to 1,000 million dollars in two years.
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