Digital media measurement company
comScore Networks today released the results of their analysis of global instant messenger (IM) use, and the results were surprising. According to the study, the highest IM penetration was not in North America or even Europe, but in Latin America, where a whopping 64 percent of the online population used IM in February.
In contrast, only 37 percent of the online population in North American and 49 percent in Europe used IM programs to communicate in February.
Looking at the raw volume of users, Europe comes out on top with 82 million IM users, followed by North America with 69 million users.
On a market basis,
MSN Messenger has the strongest penetration worldwide, with 61 percent of online users overall, 90 percent of Latin American users and 70 percent of European and Asian users.
Skype Gains Market Share
The report made some interesting findings about changes in the IM market:
- North America is the most competitive market, with MSN Messenger, AOL/AIM and Yahoo! Messenger each taking between 27-37 percent of the market
- Skype reaches 26 percent of the Asian IM market, and 14 percent worldwide
These figures are based on actual use rather than
registered users -- a more accurate indicator of market share.