What’s the fastest-growing fixed-line phone company in the United States?
It’s not Verizon Communications Inc. or AT&T Inc. — they’re losing lines. What about cable company Comcast Corp., which is raking in subscribers for its phone service? Even that company is being beaten by a small Palm Beach, Florida, company called YMax Corp., judging by its own figures.
YMax may not be well-known but the company has been running TV ads for its product, the MagicJack, which works with a broadband connection.
It’s about the size of a matchbox and plugs into a PC. After plugging a regular phone into the MagicJack, the user can make and receive calls much like using a regular landline.
In January, just after the broad advertising campaign started, YMax was selling a few hundred MagicJacks per day, said Jim Donlon, its chief marketing officer. Now, it’s selling 8,000 to 9,000 per day, and the company is on track to have half a million subscribers by the end of June.
That’s a meteoric trajectory in the phone business, propelled by the pricing: The MagicJack costs $39.95, including one year of free calls in the United States and Canada. Another year of service costs $19.95.
“It’s extremely low-risk. Most people I know are willing to gamble on 40 bucks,” said TeleGeography analyst Stephan Beckert, who follows voice-over-Internet providers.
Unlike most voice-over-Internet Protocol — or VoIP — providers, YMax is licensed as a phone company in the continental United States and operates a wide network of servers to carry its calls. VoIP providers generally outsource that side of the business.
Comcast, the fastest-growing cable voice provider, signed up a net average of 7,100 customers per day in the first quarter, ending with 5.1 million on March 31. Vonage Corp., the leading independent provider of VoIP that works with regular phones was averaging 334 per day,…
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