Primus is currently having a run rate of 450 million minutes of VoIP per quarter. Its retail VoIP offering, Lingo, (offered in the US, Canada, Audtralia, UK and Brazil) had over 100k subscribers as of end 2Q07. The company has some aggressive plans for VoIP and broadband in Australia. It has some 180 DSLAMs in Australia and plans to add 100 more, majority new POP location. Together it has over 200k DSL customers in Canada and Australia.
Coming back to VoIP service itself, Lingo generates revenues in the region of $30m for Primus per quarter these days. The service is operating positive EBIDTA. Although the company had earlier expected to achieve positive ebidta after hitting 200k VoIP customer base, but that assumed a higher marketing spend for Lingo. Marketing for Lingo has been tuned down a little. Price of the package has also been increased from previous average of $19.95 to $34 per month.
In fact Lingo VoIP service has the highest ARPU ($34 per month) in the industry. A contributing factor is the international business. The company had previously planned to spin off Lingo as a separate entity. Unfortunately Vonage IPO did not do wonders, so Primus abandoned the idea. With Lingo, Primus has focused on increasing margins and improved customer service.
There is one other issue with retail VoIP offering, the E911 compliance. Not all Lingo customers have access to E911. As of April 19, 2007, approximately 10% of Lingo customers were without E911 service.