Skype Usage: Incremental or Substitutional? (EBAY)

I think one of the many lessons for the telecom industry from the advent of Skype (EBAY) has been the need to redefine our understanding of user motivation. Obviously, the industry was right to be alarmed (when it would admit to being alarmed, that is) at Skype's potential to drive simple price arbitrage opportunities, but there was clearly a lot more going on than this alone.

Ease-of-use, audio quality, presence, multi-chat, file transfer, etc., all came together to form a "killer cocktail" experience for the user, resulting in something not necessarily recognisable to the industry as a competing "voice service". It was/is something else, another behavior - purple minutes vs. grey minutes, as Jeff Pulver might say.

This view seems to be borne out by a survey just out in Japan (Japanese only). Japan.Internet.com and goo Research interviewed 1,011 internet users aged 20 - 59, and found that just over 11% of them (113 people) had downloaded and installed Skype, and 42% had heard of it. Of those who hadn't used Skype, once the application was explained to them, just over 42% expressed some degree of interest in using it.

What I find most interesting and relevant is that, of those who had installed Skype, only 14% said that their use of fixed line and mobile phones had declined as a result, in contrast to 74% who said that their phone usage patterns remained unchanged. This is consistent with a similar survey carried out among Skype users last year, which found that 20% said their conventional phone usage had declined, while 78% cited no change.

Comments

[Dion Almaer:]

I wonder about the future for Skype. I am able to use one IM client such as Adium or Trillian for all IM services other than Skype.

Currently Skype still has the name, but how long will it be until being proprietary means problems for Skype? Most IM clients have audio and video now, so unless Skype opens up and plays nice.....

Dion

2006 May 25 01:03 PM