2007-11-24

51 million Skypers in China

I read the following: China becomes Skype's biggest market with 51 mln users, yet to make profit.

As usual, let me correct this statement: they mean “registered user names”, not "registered users", and this isn't equal to "active users".

Like i do usually, let us assume the numbers are however correct, this would mean that:
  • 20 % of the active Worldwide Skypers are from China
  • 3.9 % of the population of China are Skypers
  • 5.4 % of the “active” population of China are Skypers (discounting people older than 65 years, and younger than 14 years) [EDITED ON 25/11: The number in red was edited, as i made an error in my calculation]
  • 34 % of Chinese internet users are Skypers
Bear in mind that the second, third and fourth numbers above are very exaggerated. Reasons are:
  • lost password, and therefore inaccessible user name, therefore the need to create a new user name
  • testing Skype, and abandoned use of the user name
  • spare user names, registered for alternative or future use (i have several!)
  • the owner of the user name died (yes, this also happens!)
  • the person switched to another VoIP tool
  • the person registered a temporary name for a temporary past situation
  • spammers also register multiple usernames to "attack" their victims
So, like always, this 51 million users statement is marketing exaggeration!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jean,

A quick question. I have been tracking Skype for a number of years using the link http://share.skype.com/stats_rss.xml

Since Nov 12 the data has not been refreshed, how are you tracking the numbers.

Many thanks

Jean Mercier said...

The RSS feeds are indeed down, and i don't know why.

Users online can still be tracked through your Skype client.

I am (like you) disappointed that the RSS feeds don't work anymore.

Anonymous said...

Looking at the skype users that appear online during the midpoint of the Asian day, I'd say that there are about 6.36 million users in all of Asia (including Japan, Australia, China, India, etc.). That represents about 24% of the total Skype population. When eBay bought Skype 2 years ago, that statistic was 20%, so Asia is growing only marginally faster than the rest of the Skype world. See http://www.glimfeather.com/borderless/ for more information. Sorry for the self-serving plug. To be fair, some credit for these stats is owed to Jean Mercier...... Thx The Borderless Communicator

Jean Mercier said...

This means that internet usage in Asia is slowly catching up with the internet penetration in North-America and Europe!

Thanks for the credit :-)