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Bill Campbell
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Is Skype's Number Up?

April 2, 2005 11:03 AM

Topics: observations

My Skype buddy, Jean Mercier, a TQM consultant, collects numbers. Jean has been tracking downloads and users online for about a year now (what else can you do in Belgium :) :)). His graph tells a nice story.

Users online.png


Skype hit 50,000 new registered users per day around August 2004 then hit 100,000 per day (70 per minute) back in December 2004, now it is adding new users at 150,000 per day (104 per minute). Where is this headed? What will the user base be at the close of 2005? 2006? Will the viral affect hit a plateau?


Well with about 270 days left in the year, if the current rate of new users is maintained Skype will add another 40 million users to its current 30 Million. So can we expect to end 2005 with 70 million Skype users?

I am forever an optimist and I think we will see numbers bigger than 70 million. More like 100 million! Yes, people disagree with me. In response to my forecast one Skype Staffer put it simply, “this is entirely wrong”. But is my forecast wrong? Before June I suggest the growth will be at 200,000 per day.

Perhaps you agree with my pessimistic contact in Estonia. He purposed a valid counter claim: a limit set by the current number of 150 million broadband users. Anyone know how fast this number is growing?

Let’s watch the numbers. I am sure Jean will keep us posted.

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Posted by: mike at April 3, 2005 8:42 PM

Although only 150 million broadband users, this doesn't account for the millions of people who have downloaded and run skype at work. Any way you look at it though, it's damn impressive!

Posted by: Jordan Brock at April 3, 2005 9:11 PM

It's very impressive, but I would like to see some info on the numbers of people actually using the software on a regular basis. It's one thing to download and register the program, and another to say how many minutes have been "served", but what is the regular user base?

Posted by: Bill Campbell at April 3, 2005 9:48 PM

Hey Mike!

Good point. I think the next big adoption will be in the SME.

Thanks for joining us...

Regards, Bill

Posted by: Bill Campbell at April 3, 2005 9:56 PM

Hey Jordan!

Me too. :) :)

The closest thing we have to monitor is the users online. We passed 2.5 M last week. It should be over 3 M at month's end.

Watching the users online correlated with this clock http://www.worldtimezone.com/datetime.htm
can help tell many stories.

Regards, Bill

Posted by: Jordan Brock at April 4, 2005 5:40 PM

Bill,

Is there somewhere that the public can monitor the number of users online?

J

Posted by: Stuart Henshall at April 4, 2005 10:05 PM

Jordan, Next time you are on Skype look at the bottom right of the Skype client. You will see the current number of users online. It usually peaks between 10:00am and 1:00pm PST daily.

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