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The latest earnings report from eBay shows that Skype is now making money! For those of you that are unaware, eBay bought Skype for about $4bn a few years ago when Skype were losing money – and everyone thought it was way overpriced. However, opinions may now be changing, as a result of this announcement:

“Skype continued its strong growth trajectory, reporting $126 million in revenue for the quarter, representing 61% year-over-year growth. Skype added 33 million registered users in the quarter, ending the period with more than 309 million registered users around the world. Skype now has the largest registered user base within eBay Inc.’s portfolio of businesses.”

Although Skype might not be a good fit for eBay, after these impressive earnings it is likely that if eBay were to spin off Skype as its own public company, there would be huge benefits for eBay – it would appease eBay’s shareholders, put money in the bank for more sensible acquisitions, and be one of the hotter Internet IPOs in a few years. After all, few companies of Skype’s size can grow revenue and users more than 10% quarter by quarter – making it a very attractive company to Wall Street investor types. Perhaps eBay has hung onto Skype this long just to let it grow into its $4 billion valuation before offering it up on the public market. Or perhaps they are thinking about selling to someone else? Whichever option, eBay certainly doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to decide.

So, with Skype continuing to grow rapidly, perhaps it was a good investment for eBay after all?