Toper Turor

Shifts in website visits

Shifts in website visits

In January i expressed my surprise on the 4 smaller countries in the top 5 of Skype.com visitors.

Then some weeks ago i caught again data from the Alexa website. And i did it again on May 1.

The table below shows the top 5 visiting countries of the Skype.com websites on those 3 different dates.
Here the objective remarks:

1. In January 16.5% of the visits came from 4 smaller emerging countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Algeria and Slovakia), and 9% from "Big Brother" U.S.A.;
2. On April 15, one of the smaller countries left the top 5 and was replaced by � China!
3. On May 1st, all the smaller countries left the top 5, and were replaced by 3 big rich industrialised countries (Germany, Italy, United kingdom);
   
4. The U.S.A. has reinforced its first position: it has more then doubled its share of the website visits, with 20% of all the visits;
5. China also increased its share and rose from the third position to the second position;
6. About 25% of the visits came from the top 5 countries in January and April 15, and rose quite spectacularly to 43% after April 21!.
   

Now the �why�s� and of course, here i am speculating, because i don�t have access to the commercial data of Skype related to purchases or downloads or new user accounts per country:

1. In January the smaller emerging countries were in the top 5 because they invest heavily in fast internet connections, which means that people now have the possibility to use Skype, therefore � more website visits!
2. The addition of China in the top 5 is a confirmation that the Chinese internet penetration is accelerating;
3. Skype launched its new calling subscription plan on April 21. A lot of people from rich countries went to the website to check the prices;
4. The interest of the USA in the new subscription plan is also very clear!
5. And China continues to grow!
6. Spending money on Skype is a rich countries business!
   

Does this mean that the new subscription plan is a success? I don�t know. I also took a look at the website, but didn�t subscribe. Huge amounts of new customers could also mean a lot of new downloads, and i dont notice anything there, see my previous post. I think it will be a shift in consumption pattern for some people, and this does not necessarily mean an increase in revenue for Skype.

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