I spend a lot of time travelling – I’m in Luxembourg and London one week, San Jose the next, and Tokyo the week after that. Each and every week, no matter which city or country I’m visiting, I get asked the same questions: Why can’t I use Skype on my cell phone? When will I be able to take Skype with me on my iPhone? Is Skype really serious about going mobile? And it’s not just me – Skype t–shirts are a magnet for questions like that

Thanks to the hard work of our software engineers, I’m now proud to be able to direct these inquiring minds (including yours) to a complete range of rich Skype software for mobile devices powered by every single one of the world’s six major mobile operating systems – Android, BlackBerry, iPhone OS, Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile.

Update: As of October 2009, Skype for BlackBerry is undergoing beta testing among a select group of users. Keep an eye on this blog or follow @skypemobile on Twitter for more information about a wider release.

Let me quickly review Skype’s mobile range:

• Skype for iPhone – Now, millions of iPhone and iPod touch users can take their Skype conversations with them anywhere they go. This application lets you make free Skype–to–Skype calls and calls to landlines and mobiles at Skype’s low rates from any WiFi zone. If you’re in a WiFi zone, you can also receive calls to your Skype online number. The app also supports instant messaging (both one–to–one and group IM) via WiFi, 3G, EDGE or GPRS. You can even update your Skype profile photo with an image taken by the iPhone camera or an existing photo from the Camera Roll.
• Lite version of Skype, soon to also be available for BlackBerry smartphones – This ‘thin client’ version of Skype lets you make Skype–to–Skype calls and SkypeOut calls to landlines and mobiles, send instant messages to/from individuals or groups, and lets you see when your contacts are online. The Beta version for BlackBerry will be appearing in May, so keep your eyes peeled. The Lite version of Skype is currently available on the Android platform and hundreds of the most popular Java–enabled cell phones from the top five handset manufacturers – LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
• Skype for Windows Phones – Skype for Windows Phones has already been downloaded more than 12 million times. The current release, Skype 2.5 for Windows Mobile, improves the user experience and is compatible with more devices than ever before. The newest Beta version 3.0 also adds the ability to send SMS messages at Skype’s low rates, and lets you transfer files to and from other Skype users.

We have gone from having an application for just one mobile OS (Windows Mobile) to covering all six in just three months – a pretty impressive feat. We introduced the lite version of Skype for Android and Java at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January and upgraded Skype for Windows Mobile earlier this month. Now, here at CTIA in Las Vegas, we announced the immediate release of Skype for iPhone and that Skype will soon be running on BlackBerry smartphones. And if you don’t use one of these mobile devices, you can also make low cost Skype calls to mobiles and landlines using a Skype To Go number.

When I spoke at CES, I made an ambitious commitment to our mobile strategy, and now, having delivered on that commitment, we’ve made it pretty clear that Skype really is serious about being a leader in the mobile industry.

Skype generated $551 million in revenue last year and has reported a profit each quarter for the past two years. Thanks to you, we now add 350,000 new users a day and we are making more free and paid features available in each of our products. These impressive numbers make Skype the fastest growing internet company after just five years – ahead of both eBay and Google. So, if things are that good, why do we need to do all of this mobile stuff?

The answer is simple. People around the world are looking for ways to take Skype mobile. We do a lot of research when we develop new versions of Skype, and nearly 80% of participants in our studies have asked us to make Skype more mobile.

But, there is still a lot more to be done. Now that these different mobile Skype applications are available for people like you to download and install on your phones, we need to focus on making it even easier for you to use Skype on the move.

So, we’re talking with mobile device and handset manufacturers about ways to have Skype come pre–loaded and/or deeply integrated on their devices. Our partnership with Nokia to build Skype into some of their NSeries smartphones is a major first step in accomplishing this task. Stay tuned as there will be more to come in the following months.

In addition to partnerships with hardware manufacturers, we’re talking with wireless carriers around the globe about ways that they can package Skype, together with reasonably–priced data plans and optimized devices in such a way to give consumers what they want, without cannibalizing their own voice calling revenues.

We’ve already done this with Hutchison 3, an innovative carrier which operates in Europe, Asia and the Pacific region. They have sold more than 500,000 3 Skypephones, which have attracted new customers to their network, increased their average revenue per user, and kept customers for longer. In today’s business environment, I don’t know of any wireless operator that wouldn’t be interested in doing just that.

Clearly, this is a clear call to action for all of us in the communications industry. It will take greater collaboration between carriers, device manufacturers, and software companies like Skype to deliver what the mobile consumer – especially the next generation of device and data plan buyers – obviously want and expect from their mobile internet experience.

Together, we can bring a rich PC–like communications experience to mobile devices – one that combines voice, video, presence, instant messaging, and file sharing. In doing so, consumers win, as does the industry – as apps like these fuel growth in data usage, and therefore revenues.

Of course, we’ll still continue to innovate on our desktop software, so you can be certain of getting the best user experience wherever you are.

Now next time I go on the road, I’ll be expecting to hear a totally different question from the people I meet in every city that I visit – ‘what is Skype going to dream up next?’