User:Aph08

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Usage and traffic[edit]

Usage and traffic
Date Total user accounts
(millions)
[1][2][3][4][5][5][6][7] 		Active users, daily use
(millions)
[8][9][10] 		Skype to Skype minutes
(billions)
[11] 		SkypeOut minutes
(billions) 		Revenue USD
(millions)
Q4 2005 74.7 10.8 — — —
Q1 2006 94.6 15.2 6.9 0.7 35
Q2 2006 113.1 16.6 7.1 0.8 44
Q3 2006 135.9 18.7 6.6 1.1 50
Q4 2006 171.2 21.2 7.6 1.5 66
Q1 2007 195.5 23.2 7.7 1.3 79
Q2 2007 219.6 23.9 7.1 1.3 90
Q3 2007 245.7 24.2 6.1 1.4 98
Q4 2007 276.3 27.0 11.9 1.6 115
Q1 2008 309.3 31.3 14.2 1.7 126
Q2 2008 338.2 32.0 14.8 1.9 136
Q3 2008 370 33.7 16.0 2.2 143
Q4 2008 405 36.5 20.5 2.6 145
Q1 2009 443 42.2 23.6 2.9 153
Q2 2009 483 ? 25.5 3.0 170
Q3 2009 521 ? 27.7 3.1 185
Q4 2009 560 ? 36.1 ? ?
Q1 2010 ? ? 190 12.8 860
Q2 2010 ? ? ? ? ?
Q3 2010 ? ? ? ? ?
Q4 2010 ? ? ? ? ?
Q1 2011 ? ? ? ? ?
Q2 2011 ? ? ? ? ?
Q3 2011 663 ? ? ? ?
Q4 2011 ? ? ? ? ?
Q1 2012 ? ? ? ? ?
Q2 2012 ? ? ? ? ?

Users may have more than one account; it is not possible to count users, only accounts.

The volume of international traffic routed via Skype is significant. It has become the largest international voice carrier (by minutes of calls).[12]

Year International call market share
2005 2.9 %[13]
2006 4.4 %[13]
2008 8 %[12]
2009 12 %[11]
2010 13 %[14]
2012 34 %[15]

In January 2011, after the release of video calling on the Skype client for iPhone, Skype reached a record 27 million simultaneous online users.[16] This record was broken with 29 million simultaneous online users on 21 February 2011,[17] and again on 28 March 2011 with 30 million online users.[18] On 25 February 2012, Skype announced that it has over 32 million users for the first time ever.[19] As of 5 March 2012, it has broken to 36 million simultaneous online users [20] and less than a year later, on 21 January 2013, Skype had more than 50 million concurrent users online.[21] On September 9th, 2013, reports suggest over 62 million concurrent users online. [22] In June 2012, Skype had surpassed 70 million downloads on an Android Device.[23]

On 19 July 2012, Microsoft announced that Skype users had logged 115 billion minutes of calls over the quarter, up 50% since the last quarter.[24]

According to Skype’s internal data from January 2013, there are 300 million Skype users worldwide, out of which 47 million users are in the US. [25] In addition, there has been a 36% growth in Skype’s international traffic in 2013 – this is equivalent to 214 billion minutes throughout the year. [26] On April 3rd, 2013, Skype celebrated its users spending 2 billion minutes a day using their service. [27]

Service in the People's Republic of China[edit]

Since September 2007, users in China trying to download the Skype software client have been redirected to the site of TOM Online, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and Skype, from which a modified Chinese version can be downloaded.[28] The TOM client participates in China's system of Internet censorship, monitoring text messages between Skype users in China as well as messages exchanged with users outside the country.[29][30] Niklas Zennström, then chief executive of Skype, told reporters that TOM "had implemented a text filter, which is what everyone else in that market is doing. Those are the regulations." He also stated: "One thing that’s certain is that those things are in no way jeopardising the privacy or the security of any of the users."[31]

In October 2008, it was reported that TOM had been saving the full message contents of some Skype text conversations on its servers, apparently focusing on conversations containing political issues such as Tibet, Falun Gong, Taiwan independence, and the Chinese Communist Party. The saved messages contain personally identifiable information about the message senders and recipients, including IP addresses, usernames, land line phone numbers, and the entire content of the text messages, including the time and date of each message. Information about Skype users outside China who were communicating with a TOM-Skype user was also saved. A server misconfiguration made these log files accessible to the public for a time.[30][32][33]

Research on the TOM-Skype venture has revealed information about blacklisted keyword checks, allowing censorship and surveillance of its users. The partnership has received much criticism for the latter. Microsoft remains unavailable for comment on the issue. [34]

According to reports from the advocacy group – Great Fire - Microsoft have modified censorship restrictions and ensured encryption of all user information. [35] Furthermore, Microsoft is now partnered with Guangming Founder (GMF) in China. [36]


Outages and downtime[edit]

On 16 August 2007, Skype became unavailable for two days to a majority of its users. Millions of users were requesting to log in at the same time following a routine Windows Update and this flooded the peer-to-peer system.[37]

On 22 December 2010, it was reported that Skype experienced an outage estimated to represent 8 million foregone calls.[38] Skype administrators placed the following message on their Twitter page: "Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype – we're investigating, and we're sorry for the disruption to your conversations...engineers and site operations are working non-stop to get things back to normal."[39][40] The problem came down to the limited availability of "supernodes", affecting some versions of Skype.[41] Later in the day, Skype's CEO, Tony Bates, issued an apology. He said that the matter was being taken very seriously and was being thoroughly investigated. He said that malicious attack was not being ruled out as a problem cause and he put his estimate of the foregone calls at about 10 million.[42] On 23 December 2010, Skype's blog with Tony Bates issued another apology through a video posted on YouTube for the Skype outage.[43]

The problem persisted across the North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia. It had started to subside by 8:30 pm UTC; however users were warned it might take several hours for the program to be fully operative again.[44] It was reported at 9:27 am 23 December UTC that most users were able to log in again although some still could not.[45] On the other hand into Thursday only about a third of the expected traffic was actually using Skype, relative to the time-period.[46] On 23 December 2010, Skype said on its blog that the system had stabilized, and a detailed explanation of the incident was published six days later.[47] Bates offered all Pay As You Go and Pre-Pay customers a free call to any landline as compensation.[48] Subscribers had their subscription extended by one week.

On May 26th, 2011, Skype reported on twitter about a “small number” of users experiencing disruption in service: “Some of you may have problems signing into Skype and making calls. We’re investigating and hope to have more details to share soon.” About an hour after this update, the users were updated about the problem being identified and a series of steps to resolve the issue was posted on Skype’s blog. Windows, Mac and Linux users faced this glitch. [49]

[50]

A number of users had trouble logging onto Skype through their Microsoft accounts on April 25th, 2013. Skype officially notified the users about this, and the problem was resolved soon after for most users. [51]

[52]

  1. ^ "eBay Inc. reports third quarter 2006 results" (PDF).
  2. ^ "eBay Inc. reports first quarter 2007 results" (PDF).
  3. ^ "eBay Inc. reports first quarter 2008 results" (PDF).
  4. ^ "Skype is the limit thanks to recession". Retrieved 6 January 2009.
  5. ^ a b "Skype facts Q1 2011".
  6. ^ "Skype fast facts Q4 2008" (PDF).
  7. ^ "Skype S.à r.l. SEC filing". 4 March 2011. Retrieved 26 May 2011.
  8. ^ "Skype users online now".
  9. ^ "WSJ: Microsoft to buy Skype for $7bn. Rest of world: for real?". ArsTechnica. 10 May 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  10. ^ "Skype's changing traffic growth". Financial Times. 10 May 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  11. ^ a b "Skype by the Numbers: It's really Big". Retrieved 1 July 2011.
  12. ^ a b Ricknäs, Mikael (25 March 2009). "Skype is largest international voice carrier, says study". Network World. IDG News Service.
  13. ^ a b "International carriers' traffic grows despite Skype popularity". TeleGeography Report and Database. Retrieved 7 December 2006.
  14. ^ "Skype Commands 13 Percent of International Phone Calls". The Inquisitr. 3 May 2010. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
  15. ^ "The Bell Tolls for Telcos?". Telegeography. 13 Feb 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  16. ^ "Skype Hits New Record of 27 Million Simultaneous Users". Retrieved 11 January 2011.
  17. ^ "29 million people online on Skype". Retrieved 23 February 2011.
  18. ^ "30 million people online on Skype". Retrieved 28 March 2011.
  19. ^ "Skype reaches new milestone with 32 million users". Retrieved 26 February 2012.
  20. ^ "35 Million People Concurrently Online on Skype". Retrieved 8 March 2012.
  21. ^ "50 million concurrent users online". Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  22. ^ "Where are the 70 million?". Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  23. ^ "More than 70 Million downloads on an Android device". Retrieved 26 June 2012.
  24. ^ "How's Skype Doing at MSFT? Usage Jumps 50 %, Users Logged 115B Minutes of Calls Last Quarter". Retrieved 21 July 2012.
  25. ^ http://advertising.microsoft.com/es-xl/WWDocs/User/display/cl/brand_subproperty/1589/global/Skype-Audience-Stats.pdf. Retrieved 9 March 2014. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  26. ^ "SKYPE'S WORLDWIDE TRAFFIC CONTINUES TO GROW, WITH 214 BILLION MINUTES ON VOIP IN 2013". Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  27. ^ "Thanks for Making Skype a Part of Your Daily Lives – 2 Billion Minutes a Day!". Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  28. ^ "Dynamic Internet Technology Inc. Alleges Skype Redirects Users in China to Censorware Version — Ten Days After Users Are Able To Download Freegate Software Through Skype". Archived from the original on 15 January 2008., TMCnet, 24 September 2007
  29. ^ "Surveillance of Skype messages found in China". International Herald Tribune. 2 October 2008.
  30. ^ a b Claburn, Thomas (2 October 2008). "Skype Defends VoIP IM Monitoring in China". InformationWeek.
  31. ^ "Skype says texts are censored by China". FT.com. Financial Times. 18 April 2006. Archived from the original on 23 March 2009. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 10 January 2008 suggested (help)
  32. ^ Fowler, Geoffrey A.; Jason Dean (3 October 2008). "Skype's China Practices Draw Ire: Joint Venture's Tracking of Text Messages Adds Impetus to Web Code of Conduct". The Wall Street Journal.
  33. ^ Markoff, John (1 October 2008). "Huge System for Web Surveillance Discovered in China". NYTimes.com.
  34. ^ "Microsoft blocks censorship of Skype in China: advocacy group". reuters.com. Reuters. 27 November 2013.
  35. ^ "Microsoft blocks censorship of Skype in China: advocacy group". reuters.com. Reuters. 27 November 2013.
  36. ^ "A new relationship for a better experience in China". blog.skype.com. Skype. 25 November 2013.
  37. ^ Arak, V (20 August 2007). "What happened on 16 August". Heartbeat.skype.com. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  38. ^ Rooney, B. (22 December 2010). "Skype Outage Hits Users Worldwide". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  39. ^ "Skype outage: millions affected worldwide". Fox News. 22 December 2010. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  40. ^ "The original message". Twitter. 22 December 2010.
  41. ^ Metz, C. (22 December 2010). "Skype goes tits up across globe: Mass supernode death". The Register. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  42. ^ Shiels, M. (22 December 2010). "Skype apologises for losing half of daily call traffic". BBC News. Retrieved 22 December 2010.
  43. ^ Skype — The Big Blog (23 December 2010). "A further update on the Skype downtime". Skype Blogs. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
  44. ^ Ando, R (22 December 2010). "Update 2-Outage takes out Skype, recovery taking hours". Reuters. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
  45. ^ Farrell, Nick (23 December 2010). "Skype comes up with 'leaves on the line' excuse". The Inquirer. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
  46. ^ Johnson, L. (23 December 2010). "Skype issues continue as two thirds of users remain offline". T3.com. Retrieved 23 December 2010. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  47. ^ "CIO update: Post-mortem on the Skype outage". 29 December 2010. Retrieved 31 December 2010.
  48. ^ "Skype makes wobbly return, offers compo to paying punters". 24 December 2010. Retrieved 24 December 2010.
  49. ^ "Skype suffers outage, delivers quick fix". 26 May 2011. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  50. ^ "Skype users frustrated by second outage". 7 June 2011. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  51. ^ "Skype experiencing Microsoft account login problems". 24 April 2013. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  52. ^ "Problems signing in to Skype with Microsoft account". 25 April 2013. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
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