Skype for iPhone release, mobile VoIP providers charge forward

The wait is finally over

It’s looks like your wait for a native Skype client for the iPhone will be over tomorrow.

The folks at Cnet are reporting that the native Skype for iPhone application will be officially announced at CITA 2009 on Tuesday. The native Skype client has been in demand from users since the launch of Apple’s app store in July of 2008.

Skype for iPhone’s impact

Over the last eight months of number of up-start mobile VoIP providers such as Truphone, Fring and Nimbuzz have tried to satisfy iPhone user’s insatiable appetite for Skype by integrating Skype into their own clients, but have had mixed results.

While there’s no hard data as to how much Skype usage is passing through third party mobile VoIP providers, there is no question that a native Skype client will be a big threat to incumbent mobile VoIP carriers.

Many mobile VoIP providers have benefited from having an iPhone application and given Skype’s visbility, user base, user experience and network (even if it is peer-to-peer) their own offering will carve out a nice chunk of the iPhone market for the company.

Mobile VoIP providers charge forward

Seemingly unphased by the pending offering (or perhaps mounting an early attack), mobile VoIP provider Truphone is going “unlimited” with two new offerings.

• TruUnlimited for landlines gives Truphone users unlimited calling to landlines in 38 countries for only $14 per month.
• Truphone’s second new offering, TruUnlimited for mobiles gives users unlimted calling to mobiles and landlines in 64 countries for $40 a month.

Another leading mobile VoIP provider, fring, announced today that they have added Twitter 2.0 to their mobile VoIP client. This addition allows users to post status updates, search followers, profiles and track conversations by keywords.

The mobile VoIP scene continues to be hot and with Skype now aiming for additional marketshare it should stay that way for the rest of the year.