Growth Rate of Skype Real Users. 5-year history.
The following numbers represent the growth rate of "real users" which is a measure of Skype usage in terms related directly to aggregate user hours:
- 2009: 1 million per month approx.
- 2008: 791,175 per month
- 2007: 479,131 per month
- 2006: 866,140 per month
- 2005: 591,153 per month
Skype growth rates vary greatly from year to year. Do the numbers fit into a pattern? Clearly the panic of 2007 that Skype might be dying was completely untrue because growth has accelerated ever since. However, drawing conclusions as to what is actually driving the growth is mainly done by guesswork.
Here's my list of suspected factors, in order of importance to the current growth of Skype.
- Worldwide growth of wired bandwidth, availability, accessibility and speed
- Worldwide growth of wireless bandwidth
- Availability of mobile and non-computer Skype devices
- More and better computers worldwide
- Availability of SkypeIN numbers
- New Skype platforms
- Improvements in Skype codecs
- Other Skype Features added and terminated
- Efforts by some countries to boycott Skype
- The worldwide economy (probably an inverse effect)
These patterns will probably continue. It is notable that the top two factors affecting Skype growth are actually not within Skype's ability to control.