Skype claims it has more than 130 million users. But, as i said before (see my post some months ago in Skype Journal) the word “users” isn’t correct: it should be “usernames” or “user accounts”.Anyway, how many regular users does Skype have now?
I found an interesting comment (with the typing mistake ;-) on the Skype Forums:
Oct 29, Gladiator:
… you should rember there are over 15M+ HAPPY users with SKYPE …
I guess the “M” stands for millions!
Forum user “Gladiator” isn’t an ordinary Skype Forum user: Adam Harris (see his profile), is forum moderator! He is also poster number 1 with almost 17.000 posts or 23 posts per day or 5.4% of total forum posts. Probably he “knows” the figure “15M+ happy users” through his regular contacts with Skype Staff!
Around October 29, the peak number of concurrent users online was about 7.8 Million. Can we therefore, as a first approximation, say that the “record number” of concurrent users online multiplied by 2 = real active users?
If this is correct, and knowing that now record peak concurrent users online is around 8.25 million, we have right now about 16.5 million happy regular Skype users.
updated at 17h20 GMT: new Skype Windows Beta version 3.0.0.137 today!
9 comments:
Mmmmmm........ wasn't it "over 130 Million downloads"??
Ike
Hi Jean
My figure is no rocket science nor any inside information from Skype. Like your self the download figure is meaningless, for example I have some six user names for test purposes.
I guestimate on how many users on line, which was @ 6M at the time, and guestimated that @ 45% to 50% users would be online at any time. I came up with 15M.
Thats all, just a 'personal' guess.
Appreciate the blog.
Regards
adam
Instead of looking at a multiple of the peak users, perhaps it makes more sense to look at a multiple of average users online. In other words, if we exclude weekends we see that the average online population is 6.5 million users (peaks at 8 troughs at 5). Maybe then one can assume that the average user remains logged on for about 8 hours. Then we can conclude that there are approximately 19.5 million active users. In any case, it gives a very similar answer.
@Ike: mmmmmmm ... no no: 130 million users! In the report from EBAY concerning last quarter results it says: 135.9 million users! We have now 433 million downloads!
@Adam: interesting guess! I guessed around August (not publicised!), 20 million active users.
@Both: i tried to find some recent Skype statement concerning the users, and found right now a transcript of the speach of Meg Whitman on October 18 5h15: Skype - 26 million users now, growing daily. Users are using WiFi phones to make Skype calls.
@OnlyEBAY: yes, this is also a way to look at it, close to my "own" guess of August!
hehe ... interesting statement, what did she mean?
*The last phrase "hehe ... interesting statement, what did she mean?" should have been written after the "Meg Whitman" statement ... error due to OnlyEBAY's reaching me in the middle of the answer to Ike and Adam ;-)
Gladiator is way off. At least 40 million active users (ie. users who use skype at least once a month).
eh, this is as good an estimate as any other one. One thing is sure: it is somwhere in between 8.5 million (peak time) and 150 million (registered usernames)
How do you get the figures for how many happy users skype has ?
Hello Swaraj,
This post is from 2006 and we are 2011, therefore the number is not up to date. See recent posts for better information!
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