January 12, 2007... How to measure Skype growth

Registered Users, Downloads, and Skype.com hits are good measures of potential Skype growth, but they are not good measures of actual growth. Such statistics are meaningless and misleading.

It is astounding that anyone would base their speculations regarding Skype's future on "downloads" or skype.com hits, yet that is precisely what is happening. To protect the guilty, I won't link you but please look around at sites that make a habit of skype-watching. They allege that Skype "downloads" has reached a plateau, yet there is no evidence for it. Indeed, the long-term graph (since 2005) of "downloads" shows exponential growth.

The meaningfulness of the "downloads" statistic is limited at best because it includes upgrades and does not include pre-installations. Yet despite these limitations, and with only anecdotal evidence to suggest a slowdown some analysts think they actually detect Skype growth reaching a plateau on "PC's" in "rich countries".

Even more absurd is the notion that one can see the growth of Skype by looking at the hits on the Skype.com website. It presumes incorrectly that the content and purpose of the skype.com website remains static, that there are no other places to get Skype support, and that usage is affected only by "new users". When I first started using Skype two years ago, I was in the Skype "forums" and on the "support.skype.com" website continually as the software matured. Now the Skype software just works. I don't need to go to Skype's website to support my Skype habit any more than I need to go to the phone company's website to support my telephone usage. So improved is the quality of Skype, and so pervasive is the expansion of the Skype ecosystem, that "Skype.com" can show no growth while the growth of "downloads" and "real users" (usage) remain very high.

The real growth of Skype should be measured only by usage, or as I would call it "real users".

Growth Per Month

As you can see, Skype growth has been remarkably well balanced by region over the past three years even as America (North & South) has gradually outpaced Europe/Africa and Asia. With no new rate increases for European or American users to swallow in 2008, and with potential mobile usage of Skype through both "Skype-to-go" and via mobile broadband such as WIMAX, the 2008 growth of Skype in the "rich countries" will continue to outpace Asia, Africa, and South America.

While the number of "registered users", "downloads", and hits on the Skype website with respect to these countries should grow faster than in developed countries, the real story of Skype in 2008 will continue to be fast growth in the USA and Europe.