Microsoft Corp., the tech giant, has announced it will retire the online video conferencing platform Skype after nearly two decades. The move comes as the company shifts its focus toward its Microsoft Teams services, according to a report by Reuters on Friday, February 28.
As reported by the news agency, Microsoft plans to discontinue Skype services on May 5, 2025. Skype, which has connected millions of people worldwide via the internet, will soon be phased out.
“We are honored to have been part of the journey,” Microsoft stated on Friday, according to the report. The tech giant also emphasized how Skype has played a pivotal role in shaping modern communication.
The Skype-powered
Founded in 2003, Skype revolutionized the industry by transitioning people from traditional telephone calls to internet-based audio and video calls. The platform quickly became a household name as millions of users worldwide embraced the new technology.
Skype is a free service that connects people, with premium features designed to help individuals and companies bring their entire workforce together on one platform.
However, according to the agency report, Skype has recently faced intense competition from industry rivals such as Zoom and Salesforce’s Slack, struggling to keep pace with them.
The report also noted that Skype’s decline can be partly attributed to the underlying technology behind the platform, which is ill-suited for the smartphone era.
According to the agency report, Microsoft aggressively promoted Teams by integrating it with other Office apps, targeting corporate users during the global pandemic. This strategy led to Teams capturing a significant portion of Skype’s market share.
What should Skype users do?
To assist users in the transition, Microsoft announced that Skype users will be able to log into Microsoft Teams for free on any supported device using their existing Skype credentials. Chats and contacts will be automatically migrated between the two platforms, according to the agency report.
Microsoft’s decision to retire Skype is seen as one of the company’s most significant moves, following the shutdown of the Internet Explorer web browser and the Windows Phone brand, the report states.
The tech giant has declined to disclose the current total number of Skype users and has also stated that the closure will not lead to any job cuts. According to the agency report, Microsoft Teams now boasts nearly 320 million monthly active users.
Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011, beating out Google and Facebook in a bidding war. At that time, Skype had nearly 150 million monthly users, but by 2020, that number had dropped to just 23 million.
