Speculation is mounting that eBay, the internet auction website, is preparing to sell Skype, its internet telephone company.

Industry insiders believe that eBay signalled its intent last week after John Donahue, its chief executive, described Skype as a “great stand-alone business”. This has led to suggestions that eBay would find it relatively easy to part with Skype, if a substantial bid was made.

Mr Donahue was speaking to analysts about eBay's disappointing fourth-quarter profits, which had been hit by slowing consumer spending.

When asked what was being done by eBay to add shareholder value in Skype, Mr Donahue admitted that “the synergies between Skype and the other parts of our portfolio are minimal. We're going to continue to run and operate the business. It's not a distraction currently. And at such time when we have further announcements on that, we'll let you know.”

The comments have reignited rumours that eBay will consider offers for Skype. Larry Witt, an analyst with MorningStar, the investment researchers, said: “If someone's willing to pay the right price, I don't think [eBay] would have a problem selling it.

“They will have their own internal projections on how much it's worth, but I think they made it clear it's not a core part of their strategy going forward.”

Ebay bought Skype, which allows users to make telephone calls over the internet, in 2005 for $2.6 billion but has admitted since then that it hugely overpaid for the business. The software was developed by the entrepreneurs Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis, and a team of software developers based in Tallinn, Estonia. Industry insiders suggested that potential buyers for Skype might include Google, as it would fit well with the search engine's similar Google Talk feature, as well as American telecoms companies such as AT&T or Verizon, both of which have strong businesses in landlines and mobile telephone networks.

Jack Murphy, an analyst for William Blair, a Chicago-based investment bank, said: “It's important that eBay has opened the door to a buyer by talking about Skype as a stand-alone business. It would be best for eBay to get whatever cash they could for it and focus on their struggling core marketplace business.”

EBay said that it could not comment on the reports. Last week the company reported that net profit in the fourth quarter, usually the company's strongest because of the Christmas sales period, fell to $367million, or 29 cents per share, from $531million, or 39 cents per share, a year earlier.

Total revenue fell 7 per cent to $2.04billion, below the $2.11 billion estimated by Wall Street. The bulk of that was down to a 16 per cent drop at its main business, which largely consists of its auction sites.

Meanwhile, at Skype, revenue rose by 26 per cent. The business continues to grow rapidly, with latest figures showing that Skype has 405 million user accounts worldwide, adding 30million subscribers every quarter.

Dark day in Tallinn

When Skype was bought by eBay four years ago for $2.6 billion, one of the biggest winners was Tim Draper, of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the US venture capital firm. He paid $10 million to take a 10 per cent stake in 2002 after meeting the co-founder Niklas Zennström. He later described selling Skype as “the saddest day of my year”.

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