Why it matters: It's no secret that services like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and even Discord are doing very well amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. They're doing so well, in fact, that earlier this year, they struggled to keep their servers up long enough to meet the overwhelming demand. However, the exact level of success Teams, in particular, has achieved would have been difficult for even an optimist to predict: as of writing, Teams has acquired 115 million daily active users.
That's an astounding figure, and it's one many communication services never achieve – or at least achieve over a much longer period. Obviously, we can't attribute the entirety of that number to Microsoft's hard work alone: mandatory work-from-home policies resulting from Covid-19's spread are undoubtedly a major growth factor here.
Regardless, whether this success was achieved due to Microsoft's efforts or not, it is still a success, and one the company is already bragging about quite happily to investors – company CEO Satya Nadella revealed the information in an IR call today.
Notably, the bulk of this growth has occurred over the last six months alone. Indeed, as of April, Teams boasted 75 million daily active users, meaning Microsoft has managed to pull in another 40 million in half a year.
Obviously, we're not sure how many of those users are paid and how many are using free Teams plans, but in either case, our hats go off to Microsoft and co. The company isn't perfect, but Teams is a solid platform, and we hope its sudden success paves the way for improved functionality and feature updates over time.
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