2007-10-27

+2.5 % this week!

Last week we reached for the first time 10 million concurrent Skype users online. Completely to my surprise, this week we went over 10.270.000 users online. This is an increase of 2.5% in one week!

Is the deal with MySpace already harvesting new Skype Users? Perhaps, because i noticed also an increase in the number of downloads of the Skype client! The download speed is twice as high as some weeks ago.

Below i published the updated graph of the evolution of users online since the beginning of Skype in August 2003 (my data samples).
Users online fluctuate during the day, week and months, but reach now sometimes 10 million users online, and never go below 4 million users online (see the two blue curves, representing “upper” and “lower” limits of users online over the last 4 years). Some reasons for the fluctuations are:
  • At night some people log off;
  • During the weekend, less people are online;
  • Holiday periods (summer, New Year, other public holidays) are also “bad” for the online number.
Although the growth of users online has been strong the last two weeks, i still don’t believe we will reach the 11 million mark this year!

4 comments:

ONLYEBAY said...

Make that 10.331.654 and its only Monday. Not sure if its the MySpace effect but Skype has gotten its mojo back from somewhere.

Jean Mercier said...

To be honest, i am not sure at all it is the MySpace effect, but ...
during months there was a stagnation, and now suddenly this strong rise, and only that one reason that seems to explain it ...
I am sure it isn't the new 3.6 beta release with better video: isn't a revolution!

ONLYEBAY said...

It could be all the free publicity that Skype is getting. (Launching phone with 3, partnering with MySpace, causing EBAY to report Q3 loss, firing Zennstrom and looking for new CEO, launching new beta, etc etc... Could be a classic case of "any news is better than no news."

Jean Mercier said...

You could be right with your "free publicity" theory.

Today was only some 10.25 million, and tomorrow will be less i guess: quite some Catholic countries have a day off on November 1 and/or 2.