Skype Expands Low-Cost Global Rate to More Countries

LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 27, 2005--Skype, the Global Internet Telephony Company(TM), today announced new lower calling rates in honor of the one year anniversary of SkypeOut, Skype's first premium service, offering the 47 million people already using Skype low-cost calling to landline and mobile phones. Launched one year ago on July 27, 2004, SkypeOut rates to more than 30 countries have now reduced by an average of 15%. More than 1.8 million people are already using SkypeOut for tremendous savings on calls to their friends, family, colleagues and businesses anywhere in the world.

"People love to save money on their calls. SkypeOut's popularity encouraged us to extend the reach of our global rate by more than 1 billion people in key markets including China, Hong Kong and Poland," said Niklas Zennstrom, Skype CEO and Co-founder. "With 28 countries now covered by our SkypeOut Global Rate, nearly 2.2 billion people, approximately 1/3 of the world's population*, can now be reached on their landlines and mobiles for 1.7 Euro cents a minute. These rate reductions reinforce Skype's commitment to reducing costs and revolutionizing the ease and quality with which people communicate using the Internet."

Six major new countries have been added to the SkypeOut Global Rate, a fixed, low-cost rate of 1.7 Euro cents per minute to popular calling destinations. China, Greece, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Poland and Switzerland have joined more than 20 additional destinations in the Global Rate. Skype has also significantly lowered SkypeOut rates for calling numbers in Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bulgaria, the Cook Islands, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Korea, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland (mobile), Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka and Turkey.

Prices for SkypeOut calls to Saudi Arabia, Papua New Guinea, Oman, Lichtenstein and Haiti numbers will increase slightly. Detailed SkypeOut destination rates are available at http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/rates/.

*Population information sourced by United States' World Factbook