Ebay's big bid scoops Skype
Just two months after launching its Polish service, Ebay is making further inroads into the country's media sector by taking over the hugely popular Skype phone service. Poland is Skype's second biggest user after the United States.
The $2.6 (zł.8.3) billion deal also incorporates a performance-based consideration that could mean an additional $1.5 (zł.4.8) billion payable in cash or Ebay stock by 2009.
The value of the deal may come as a surprise considering that the two year-old Skype Technologies SA employs only 200 people, generates a loss, and last year its income amounted to $7 (zł.22.4) million.
Founded in 2002 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the Luxembourg-based Skype offers voice communication to anyone with an internet connection and enables free calls between Skype users online, posing a significant threat to mobile and fixed telephony.
"Skype is a company with enormous development potential. It's not surprising that it has been sold as the team that created this communication engine. It was exactly what they set out to do - although they may themselves be astonished by the popularity of their invention," says Tomasz Kulisiewicz, an independent IT analyst.
Skype already has 54 million members in 225 countries and territories and is adding approximately 150,000 users a day. Poland is its second-biggest user worldwide with three million downloads, preceded only by the US. Before striking the deal with the online auctioneer, the Luxembourg-based VoIP (voice over internet protocol) operator conducted negotiations with NewsCorp, Microsoft and Yahoo but to no avail.
Ebay's new purchase is expected to further facilitate buying and selling goods online as well as speed up the electronic-payment processing service PayPal, acquired by Ebay in 2002. In April this year, Ebay entered the Polish e-commerce market. However, it struggled to compete with its local counterpart Allegro.
"Ebay underestimated the Polish market, which was a major mistake. Actually, the company ignored the CEE market for many years so it will be very interesting to see in what way the transaction is going to impact the Skype-Onet cooperation, as the latter constitutes a very advantageous platform for the popularization of VoIP in Poland, " Kulisiewicz added.
Onet.pl is Skype's exclusive partner in Poland since April this year but the internet portal doesn't seem to worry too much about the possible consequences of the transaction.
"We welcomed the information with great joy," said Piotr Tchórzewski, Onet.pl's spokesperson.
"One might take a risk of forecasting that Skype is now going to strengthen its position as the unquestionable leader among internet communicators. For Onet.pl it's also very good news - the engagement of a significant player like Ebay proves that our development strategy follows the global market trends," added Tchórzewski.
