Monday, September 12, 2005
Posted by Roberto
12:26 PM
0 comments
WILL EBAY PAY TOO MUCH FOR SKYPE?
As EBay prepares to pay 4.1bn for Skype, in a move to add free voice calls to its online auctions and fuel growth, Skype users in China are worried that the Chinese government will soon block Skype usage. This will ensure the profitability of Chinese telcos.
With a potential loss of 120 million Internet users from the equation, 4.1B may be too much for EBay to pay.
At the moment, Skype still works fine out of Shanghai, but the South China Morning Post (biz.scmp.com) has just published an article called "Cyber barbarians at the gate" mentioning that China Telecom installed blocking equipment in several Chinese provinces and they just run a test in Shenzen to block Skype users. This is likely a threat to get Skype to the negotiating table to talk about revenue-sharing.
"Western investors ...
don't know anything about China
or anything about my company"
-- Charles Zhang, Sohu chief executive
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