Amid COVID-19 outbreak, Microsoft Teams rakes in 44 million DAUs
What's the story
As professionals around the world continue to switch to working remotely, due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease COVID-19, productivity platforms are reaping the benefits. Case in point: Microsoft Teams, the dedicated work communication app that has just reached 44 million daily active users (DAUs), thanks to more and more people using the service from their homes. Here's more about it.
Numbers
DAUs doubled in four months
Back in November 2019, Teams, which had launched in late 2016, had some 20 million daily active users. However, over the last five months, when COVID-19 wreaked havoc in China and other parts of the world and forced people to work from home, the daily users of the service surged significantly, growing up to a whopping 44 million as of this week.
Data
12 million fresh users in a week
The growth of Teams has been such that the platform's daily users increased from 32 million last Wednesday to 44 million this Wednesday - a surge of 12 million in just a week.
Competition
This puts Teams way ahead of Slack, its main competitor
The significant increase in DAUs for Microsoft Teams positions the platform way ahead of Slack, its key competitor in the work chat space. Even though Slack would have also witnessed a surge in daily active users due to the same factors, the company hasn't shared the latest user numbers just yet. Last time, it had reported 12 million DAUs in October 2019.
Comments
Spikes in markets most hit by COVID-19, says Microsoft
"COVID-19 has impacted the lives of people around the world," Jared Spataro, Microsoft corporate VP, said in a company-issued statement, noting that "it will be a turning point for the way people will work and learn." He added, "Our customers have certainly turned to Teams during this challenging time, and we have seen usage spikes in markets most impacted by COVID-19."
Information
14x more users in Netherlands, 10x more in Spain
As compared to the last week, Teams had 14 times more users in the Netherlands this week, Spataro said while adding the app had also recorded 10 times more users in Spain and 7 times more in France.
Domination
Microsoft has long been dominating the productivity space
Microsoft has dominated the office productivity space for years with its Office suite of programs. Now, with Teams, the company has shown similar progress and that too with the ability to attract fresh organic interest. To recall, Teams entered the market when Slack was already a well-established player in the work communication category. It had launched in 2013.