Skype, which has 560 million registered users, of whom 8.1 million are fee-paying, is the world’s largest carrier of international voice minutes. It logged 6.4 million billing minutes in the period, compared to 10.7 million for all of 2009.
It is hoping to raise $100 million from its IPO. It posted earnings of $13.2 million in the first half of 2010 on revenue of $406 million.
Yet while Gmail phone service is not a major threat to telecom, it is one more segment in which telcos find themselves competing against the search heavyweight.
From bandwidth to mobile advertising to mobile apps, Google clearly finds the telecom business irresistible. Operators lost for a strategy could do worse than copy Google. For the rest: watch Google as closely as you watch your own business.