MSN Messenger Overtakes AIM
Wow. Big news today: MSN Messenger has pulled into first place among worldwide instant messenger usage, beating AOL Instant Messenger for the first time ever. MSN pulled a commanding 61 percent worldwide, according to Comscore. How did Microsoft do it? By targeting Latin America, where MSN holds 90% of the market share, and having 70% of Asia and Europe didn’t hurt, either.
The MSN Messenger application has the strongest penetration worldwide, with 61 percent of worldwide IM users utilizing the application in February. MSN Messenger is also dominant in Latin America, reaching more than 90 percent of IM users, and in Europe and Asia Pacific, reaching more than 70 percent of IM users in each region. North America is the most competitive IM market, with MSN Messenger, AOL/Aim and Yahoo! Messenger each garnering between 27 percent and 37 percent of IM users in February.
Additional IM programs are gaining ground, especially outside of North America. Skype is now used by 14 percent of IM users worldwide, although this application is used by only 3 percent of the online population in North America. Skype appears most popular in Asia Pacific, reaching 26 percent of the region’s IM user population.
Say, Comscore: How about more data? This stuff is huge. Without even having released the Windows Live version, Microsoft has already taken the lead. Meanwhile, AOL’s huge Triton upgrade hasn’t caught on with the teenagers I’ve spoken to, with many complaining about the software and downgrading to old versions.
And I believe the Latin American numbers. I get a lot of random chat requests from people in those countries, wanting to know if I have a webcam…
(via Barnako > Findory)
April 12th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
General, MSN, Windows, Messenger, Live |
one comment
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[…] This could be a familiar strategy for Microsoft, which has taken over other markets en route to being number one worldwide. Readers with a good memory may remember that in April, Microsoft overtook AOL to have the number one instant messenger client, due to strong numbers in Latin America, Europe and Asia. It would not shock me to see the same thing happening with the search engine. […]
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