14 DAY TRIAL // Highly popular VoIP service Skype is said to be gaining even more traction among users worldwide. According to a recently published report from TeleGeography, a benchmark research service for the international long-distance telephony industry, Skype managed to account for no less than 12 percent of all international calls made during 2009.
The same report also shows that Skype-to-Skype calls have registered a growth of 50 percent when compared to the previous year. During 2009, international calls totaled a number of 406 billion minutes, 54 billion of which were made by users calling each other Skype-to-Skype. Moreover, the on-net international traffic between Skype users is also said to have registered a growth last year, and should continue to do so in the future too.
The international call volume from telephones is also reported to have soared at a steady rate of 15 percent per year during the past 25 years, yet the growth has already begun to slow down lately. During the past two years, the report from TeleGeography shows, the increase in international calls has dropped to only eight percent per year, going up from 376 billion minutes in 2008 to an estimated total volume of 406 billion minutes in 2009.
While the slower growth of total international calls is certainly the effect of the economic turmoil that affected the entire world in 2009, the impressive increase in Skype usage is based on the cheap option the service offers. However, it should also be noted that the number of Skype users has increased globally, topping the 525-million mark in 2009, up from 405 million the year before.
Skype is considered today the largest long-distance phone company on the globe. Those Skype-to-Skype calls its users can benefit from are free, yet one can also make Skype-to-landline calls, which are still cheaper than what other telephony companies offer. Nevertheless, VoIP itself has also seen a wider adoption all around the world, and the increasing number of VoIP apps available both for PC and mobile-phone users suggests that carriers have found another revenue source.