Wal-Mart is going to start selling nine Skype-certified hardware devices (and by extension the Skype service) in all of its stores. The deal also includes Skype pre-paid cards. Wal-Mart is the first retailer in the U.S. to offer Skype’s pre-paid cards that will be sold in $20 denominations.
Skype’s mainstream retail push is coming at a time when the service is showing signs of maturity. In first quarter of 2007, there “was the marginal 1% increase in the Skype-to-Skype usage to around 7.7 billion minutes.”
The downside of this mainstream push by Skype is that it comes with the baggage of expectations. It will be viewed as a low-cost telephony service, and mainstream users will expect 911 services, which if not available can cause legal headaches. Regardless, this move can put pressure on Vonage, and further siphon away long distance minutes from the big phone companies.
WalMart’s press release also includes details of inventory expansion in HDTV, digital cameras, most home theatre goodies.
A company that gets everything it sells overseas, is now selling something from a European company.
#1, So no change then?
And for the record Wal-Mart doesn’t get everything they sell from overseas. They get it from where they can get the best price on it. The fact that they can get the stuff cheaper from overseas is not Wal-Mart’s fault.
Last time I was in Best Buy it seemed most of the stuff was from overseas as well. The same goes for any locally owned electronics store I’ve been in in the last 15 years.
We had a nice Mother’s Day brunch yesterday, with 4 moms in attendance…
One of their sons from the USA is currently living and studying in China. Before he left for China, he bought a portable PC (notebook) that was made in China. When he got there, his Chinese roommate proudly showed off his new computer – made in America.
I wonder which system had the higher price?
#3 – was it REALLY “made in america”, or is it like those other products that have the “made in america” stickers plastered on em (generally found in Walmart’s).
Already in stores in the Southeast, I saw this on Saturday.
Boy, Satan has a knack for marketing, doesn’t he?
Seriously, as much as I dislike Walmart’s personnel policies, (exploit cheap labor in America to hawk goods made by exploited labor in China) I have to give them credit for stuff like this.
fyi, Skype is now owned by All American eBay!