Rebtel, a VoIP provider sometimes thought of as Sweden’s (smaller) answer to Skype, today is releasing a new SDK that will let iOS and Android app developers embed Rebtel-based voice calls by way of an API directly into their apps, free of charge. This represents a new line of business for Index Ventures/Benchmark-backed Rebtel, which has up to now built a business on its own retail, consumer cheap-calls VoIP offering, now at 22 million monthly active users and profitable.

In one regard, Rebtel’s new (and free) API is a case of disrupting the disruptors: it puts it into direct competition with the likes of Twilio, Callfire, TelAPI and others already chipping away at mobile carriers’ business by offering voice services as an embeddable, cloud-based service that takes consumers away from using voice minutes and on to data networks.

The SDK was initially launched as a limited beta in December with 20 developers including TGTHR, Agile Dimension, eXeltior and MobisleApps. Today marks the full rollout, with a self-service platform and bid for more users.

“We expect thousands of developers and project that there will be 10-15 million people using the platform by the end of this year,” Andreas Bernström, Rebtel’s CEO, tells TechCrunch. He bases this on the thousands of developers he says have been contacting Rebtel from around the world, including India, China, Europe and the U.S. to use the SDK. To date, the company’s forecasts have been close to reality: projected revenues of $80 million for 2012 turned out to be $79.6 million he says. Rebtel says it is currently on course to exceed the $100 million in sales they expect for 2013. That could also lead to an IPO in two or three years.

The idea, Bernström says, will be to keep the basic VoIP API free of charge, with that service effectively aimed at those interested in calling others using the same app — for example, one early adopter is the dating app Maybe, which lets users call each other to get acquainted. The idea is to tap into the long tail of app developers and apps — currently at around 750,000 developers working in iOS and Android, and covering some 1.5 million apps, by Rebtel’s estimates.

“In the beginning we have no intention to make money from this,” he says. “The bandwidth cost for us is relatively small so if someone has hundreds of thousands of users it’s not a problem.” In the free, VoIP-only implementations, consumers see a small logo for Rebtel appear before they get connected.

Further down the line, Bernström says that Rebtel will be introducing some paid elements, specifically around group calling and charging for call termination to landlines so that you can call any number, which is how Rebtel makes revenues today.

He adds that bigger users of the SDK, with customers in the multiple millions, will like also pay for added service-level agreements to ensure uptime in the app. As for who might be a larger user, Bernström would not name specific companies but says Rebtel is already talking with some large messaging providers and gaming companies that might want to add voice services to their apps, all with over 50 million users. (Worth pointing out that at this point WhatsApp is among the messaging apps that does not have voice services; Facebook’s messenger does, in certain markets.)

Offering its service as a API-based wholesale offering is Rebtel’s bid for scale that it has yet to achieve as a standalone business since launching in 2006. “That
for us this is a pretty big step since we’ve been a consumer service for such a long time,” Bernström notes. “We want to build up the Rebtel brand as the technology for voice.” For now, the company doesn’t plan to add support for Windows Phone or BlackBerry.

Introducing the VoIP SDK gives Rebtel a chance to do something else: help pick up higher-spending smartphone users. Right now the company’s user base is about 60% feature phone and 40% smartphone — partly due to it being a legacy service, and partly because up to now it has aimed squarely at the low-cost user market that typically uses lower end devices. Building a service that is specifically aiming for scale on smartphones only could help tip the balance in the other direction. Added to Rebtel’s own smartphone apps, the aim for this year is for the proportion to be 60/40 in favor of smartphone users.

Rebtel hasn’t raised any money since picking up $20 million in 2006 from Index and Benchmark, but nor has it needed to, since it’s already profitable and has $12 million in cash reserves to finance new projects like this one.

While Bernström is not fundraising, though, he isn’t adverse to talking. He says that the investment climate in Stockholm today is very healthy. “People from the Valley seem to be taking road trips here on a regular basis, so I’m seeing Sandhill Road right here,” he says. “I think, like anybody, if the right person came along with the right investment offer it would be interesting but we’re generating a lot of cash right now and growing at the speed that we want to.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

When people think of consumer VoIP services, the first name to come to mind for many is Skype. But while Microsoft’s recent acquisition begins to explore a new role as a social advertising network, the world’s number-two VoIP provider, Rebtel, is hoping to gain some new ground. The Stockholm-based company, which has been in operation since 2006, today is announcing that it has passed 20 million active users, with 2012 revenues of $80 million and projected turnover of $100 million for 2013.

It has also seen a 250% increase in app downloads and paying users since 2011, with overall users growing currently at a rate of 500,000 each month.

The business of over-the-top telephony services is a hot space right now, with companies like Whatsapp nabbing business away from carriers by becoming users’ default mobile messaging service. As of August 2012 Whatsapp was delivering 10 billion messages per day. And as we’ve said in the past, we’ve heard that its been an acquisition target for Facebook.

Rebtel very much fits into that mold by offering a more cost-effective way of making calls on mobile devices, with a particular emphasis on long-distance calls that can cost a fortune otherwise if made via a mobile network. ”Our average users are consumers with a lot of first- and second-generation immigrants among them,” Bernström notes, so many of them will want to be calling family abroad.

And while we don’t know whether Skype is profitable today (it wasn’t when Microsoft bought it), Rebtel’s CEO Andreas Bernström tells me that his company is, and has been for the past two years. That’s one reason why Rebtel has yet to raise more money since picking up a Series A round of $20 million from Index Ventures and Benchmark the year it was founded. “We have $10 million in the bank today,” he tells me.

That strategy may change in the future, as Rebtel gears up for further expansion. Earlier this month, it announced a new line of business as a white-label VoIP provider, releasing an SDK so that developers can incorporate Rebtel’s VoIP service into their apps.

Rebtel is primarily targeting mobile developers with the service, because that is where Rebtel itself focuses most of its business, with apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone (in addition to PCs). As a point of comparison, although Skype makes a big point of how popular its mobile apps are, Bernström says that about 90% of Skype calls are made from its desktop clients.

Similar to the services offered by Twilio, the idea with the SDK is a light VoIP client that can sit embedded in other services, without the need to download a separate application for it to work.

Unlike Twilio, Rebtel is using a freemium business model for this service to attract users. While still in beta, all of it will be offered for free “with no restrictions on it because we want to understand how the market will accept and work with the SDK,” he says. He notes that since Rebtel announced two partners — VIVfone, a mobile CRM app still in stealth mode; and app developer house MobisleApps, for it to incorporate it into that apps that it makes — it’s had “a number of calls from sizeable companies to test and use this.”

Ultimately, Rebtel will make money by offering SLAs and other services to larger companies that want to incorporate the SDK; and it will also introduce a licensing fee for particularly heavy usage.

There is also a third revenue stream that is more about pushing its direct-to-consumer service: when you press an icon to initiate a call, you get a “powered by Rebtel” notice.

For each person that clicks that to download the native Rebtel client, “We are willing to pay developers for that referral traffic,” he says, because Rebtel has figured out that it is relatively successful in generating revenue from users who download its apps. “We have a 5% conversion from downloads to paying customers, each of who pay $23 dollars per month. We typically have a 35% margin on that. That means we can work out what the value of one app download is.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The charming folks at Rebtel wanted you and yours to have a great July 4th (even if you’re British, South African, Chinese, or any other nationality that doesn’t celebrate the Fourth). That said, they’re offering four 7-inch Galaxy Tab 2 tablets with $100 in calling credit from Rebtel. Fireworks!

To win, please comment below with a statement on what freedom means to you in at least 1,000 words. We’ll pick the best one this Friday. Please note: we use horrible, horrible Facebook comments so check your Facebook messages AND these comments for notification of winning since I keep messaging people on Facebook and they don’t respond. If you want to play it safe, email contest@techcrunch.com with your entry, as well. The last step isn’t mandatory.

You can download their Rebtel app here and good luck.

Note: The essay doesn’t have to be 1,000 words but watch how many people didn’t read this far.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

With Skype under Microsoft ownership, Rebtel now claims to be the largest independent mobile VoIP provider, with 17 million users in over 200 countries accessing its service over WiFi and 3G on iPhone, Android, and PCs. Rebtel has added two million users since February, and is seeing an average of 650K new users a month — many of whom have been attracted by its low-cost calling to landlines and mobile, along with the ability to switch between data and voice connections to avoid dropped calls and busy networks.

Previously, Rebtel users have been able to download its iPhone app and use it on their iPads, but today the company is launching its first iPad app, with new navigation, graphics, and phonebook integration all optimized for Apple’s tablet.

The app allows users to make calls to other Rebtellers for free over WiFi and 3G, or select a number in their address book and call outside lines for cheap — rates which CEO Andreas Bernstrom says can be up to 60 percent less expensive than Skype.

The app integrates with the iPad’s address book, enabling users to instantly see which contacts are available to call for free (are using Rebtel) and which they can call for cheap. The app also boasts low-cost international SMS at rates it claims are up to 60 percent lower than the average carrier, and allows users to let their friends reply to text messages for free by selecting “Collect Reply” and including a link to the message that lets them reply via mobile web page, while you pick up the tab. And because long calls over data networks can be unreliable, the company added its “KeepTalking” feature to let users talk over voice networks instead.

With Rebtel expecting to hit $85 million in revenues this year — with what the Rebtel CEO adds is an average revenue per user that’s three times higher than Skype — it believes its timing on the release of its new iPad app is looking good. The iPad reached 11.8 million in sales during the last quarter, with Apple selling 3 million of its new iPads in the first three days it was on the market, giving Apple a 68 percent share of the tablet market.

To this point, Bernstrom added:

We are squarely in the middle of the post-PC era, marked by an increasing amount of consumers who have leapfrogged the classic desktop PC in favor of multi-purpose mobile devices that allow for greater creativity and social interaction. We are excited to expand our development pipeline to respond to this growing global demand for tablets and iPads.

That being said, Rebtel plans to release an Android tablet app over the course of the next months, with a Windows Phone app due by the end of the summer. With Forrester research predicting that there will be 760 million tablets in use globally by 2016, the need for quality, tablet-optimized apps is becoming essential, and, offering cheap, flexible VoIP calling across tablet platforms will put Rebtel in a good position to continue its current growth.

For more, check out the free Rebtel iPad app here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

You may not be well-familiar with Rebtel, but the company is currently the largest independent mobile VoIP provider now that Skype is under the Microsoft umbrella. Rebtel, which routes international calls made from mobile phones and landlines to local numbers (specifically to minimize the cost of calling abroad), counts more than 13 million connected users and offers its services in more than 200 countries around the globe. (Not to mention an expected run-rate of $75 million by December of this year — and profitability since 2010.)

When Robin interviewed Rebtel CEO Andreas Bernstrom back in June, he expressed respect for companies like Viber “and the speed at which their mobile applications have gone viral”, but he held that dependence on WiFi and 3G would continue to “make for a poor user experience”.

“VoIP is essentially an improved fixed line service”, Bernstrom continued. “Mobile VoIP, however, has not been cracked due to the limitations of the data network”.

Well you can guess Rebtel has had a little something to say about that. The company launched its first versions of its iPhone and Android apps in 2010, followed by Blackberry in 2011, and today is announcing the launch of version 2.0 of its free iPhone app, which allows users to make and receive free international calls using WiFi, 3G, or local minutes. The app also allows texts and calls to be made to any non-Rebtel users (on any phone) for what Bernstrom says are 90 percent cheaper rates than standard international calling on an average carrier.

And perhaps the coolest feature of Rebtel’s app is a new proprietary technology called “KeepTalking”, which allows users to transition (mid-call, mind you) from WiFi/3G to local minutes. The iPhone and desktop apps will add to the Rebtel free call network already including Android and Blackberry apps, as well as facilitating free calls between existing platforms.

With the mobile VoIP market expected to reach $36 billion in revenues by 2016, and with 70 million mobile VoIP users expected to be in operation by the end of the year, Rebtel’s ability to call any phone or PC anywhere over WiFI/3G or local minutes and seamlessly switch between them if coverage deteriorates, seems to lend it a significant value proposition.

What’s more, the app also enables platform-independent free calls between Rebtel users, labeling these contacts as “free” in the app’s contact list to make it easy to see who’s already using the service. Whenever someone downloads Rebtel, the app automatically sends you a push notification and enables SMS to any mobile phone number, with an average cost savings of over 60 percent, according to the Rebtel team.

For more, check out the Rebtel app here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

VoIP company Rebtel is launching a new version of its Android app that allows users to make free Android-to-Android international calls between more than 50 countries.

While the international part of the call is free, the caller and recipient still may have to pay for local calling minutes determined by their mobile phone plans. The app runs in the background and will intercept users making a more expensive long distance calls by automatically converting the number to a cheap local number. So when the user dials an international number from the native Android dial pad, or selects a contact with an international number from the address book, the call is automatically intercepted and routed via Rebtel instead of their carrier. Also since Rebtel works on the standard cellular network using local phone numbers, no WiFi is needed to make calls.

Rebtel’s us reporting a 100% jump in revenue grew in the first half of 2010 compared to the same period last year, increasing revenue from $8 milllion to $16 million. Rebtel’s annual revenue run rate is just over $40 million, and the service has logged more than one billion minutes in international calls. The company also just acquired Talkster earlier this year.

But Rebtel faces a formidable competitor in the VoIP space: Skype. Skype’s share of international calling minutes and traffic are growing rapidly. And Skype’s quarterly revenue is a whopping $185 million.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch