Skype: We Now Accept PayPal

Skype resolved a major sales hurdle for customers living outside Europe when it officially launched PayPal today as a payment option. This means people who buy premium based services such as SkypeIn and SkypeOut at skype.com can use PayPal to pay using a credit card, bank account or stored balance. While I was once a Skype skeptic, this company continues to impress me with their ability to convince a large user base nurtured on free service to buy fee-based services. Of course, the one thing I would like to see Skype spell out is the buying patterns of its 1.4 million premium service users. It's one thing if these people make one purchase a year, it's quite another if 250K are buying a weekly or monthly basis. Much like Vonage, Skype likes to throw big numbers around – 39 million registered users, for example – but it is impossible to really get a handle on how well either company is doing without seeing some basic balance sheet figures – revenue, cash flow, EBITDA, profits, etc.