eBay’s expansion plans
Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 | 5:40 pm @ SK
[UPDATED VERSION] On Sept 12, eBay bought Internet Telephony Skype for a whopping USD$2.6 billion.
Almost Immediately, a major hurdle jump into the path as China largest Internet Service Provider’s China Telecom blocking access to Skype due to economical reason as the long-distance calls service by Skype hurt its revenue.
Under existing regulations in China, only licensed carriers are allowed to offer VOIP services that link computers and telephones.With the acquisition of Skype, EBay will now have to handle this issue and face the political ramifications of a China Telecom crackdown on SkypeOut.
"It’s going to raise their profile in an unhelpful way," said Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China, a telecommunications consultancy in Beijing.
However, eBay CEO Meg Whitman was swift enough to suggest VOIP taxation.
In another word, eBay can’t afford to lose this battle since losing out the online shopping business to Jack Ma’s Alibaba-Taobao. Worse, further back in 1999, due to technical problems, eBay delayed the roll-out in Japan and that allow Yahoo! to get a jump on the online shopping business and force eBay to pull out of the market entirely in 2002.
Apparently, Whitman is not about to let the Japan debacle be repeated anywhere else, especially in China for all its reputation as the nation of abundance.
Related Link:
- Global Voices Online | What Happen to Skype in China?
- RConversation | Skype blocked in China: users go underground
October 21st, 2005 at 8:39 pm
[…] Last month, Chinese blogger Frank Dai wrote an article on Global Voices Online (GVO) where he talked about the Government effort on banning the usage of Skype. […]
December 27th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
eBay acquisition of SKYPE has resulted in many speculations. Many wanted to comprehend why would eBay resolved to such move, is it the last mile coming ?
my guess is that they are trying to stay-in competition. They were looking for a killer app.. (something which people can’t live without daily)
Yahoo’s killer app - Free large Email, Messenger, Search Engine.
Google’s killer app - Free large Email, Search Engine, Tools, Advertisements, Messenger
MSN’s killer app - Search Engine, messenger.
it is only through killer app which consumers will not forget about the brand. This could means that killer app has the higher power than branding itself. Does this means that:
1. Do we use Yahoo, Google, MSN because of its abundance functionalities. or branding ?
2. Is branding starting to lose its appear?
November 5th, 2007 at 5:15 pm