ebay and skype the complete story

Filed in archive Venture Capital on September 15, 2005

Courtesy of Gen Kanai comes ebay's presentation (PDF) to its shareholders. It is a 80 pager full of great graphics.

Reading through I can't stand the impression that there is a company out there that has just earned too much money from the existing businesses in recent years. For me it seems a bit that ebay seemingly feels invincible. ebay just rushes from profit to profit announcement and sees Paypal growing mostly despite intolerable bad service (as I experienced several times).

The glossy presentation talks about Pay per Call Opportunities, Skype Logos on existing ebay screens and other relatively far flung revenue opportunities. Ebay bets on the synergy between Paypal, Ebay and Skype and seems to have been on the lookout for something like Skype since epic times and was just waiting for the right time when Skype is big enough to be bought. Judging from the presentation a totally new way of commerce will unfold with Skype.

No doubt VOIP is a major breakthrough in communications and will make online transactions much easier but given the distribution ebay already had - why not buying a much much cheaper competitor?

What do you think after reading the presentation?