Vonage Holdings shares take a beating on first day

Shares of Vonage Holdings Corp. took a beating in their trading debut Wednesday after pricing late Tuesday at $17 a share.

The company is the leaders in VoIP based telephony service market in the country. The shares fell 70 cents, or 4 percent, to $16.30 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Vonage shares are trading under the symbol “VG”. The company had said in a regulatory filing that they had expected to sell the 31.25 million IPO shares for $16 to $18 each. The IPO was worth around $531 million, which makes it one of the major launches this year.

Vonage is planning to spend most of the money raised by this IPO into advertising to attract new customers to their services. The company however faces massive challenges in the coming months as Skype has made PC to Phone calling in US and Canada totally free.

They also have major competition coming up from cable companies, which are now bundling VoIP services in their packages.

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