Who IMs the Most? Not North America

[Jeff]

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.

[Tigerblade]

interesting... surprising that it's not North America; that 37% figure seems really low to me.

in any case, everyone should digg this. I know i did.

[WebUrs]

Everybody sites the above study and talks about but this posting

• ComScore - Getting facts about its study ‘Who IMs the Most?’ is worse than pulling teeth

shows with facts that maybe the marketing of this firm is great but backing up their claims with facts is a bit tougher.

Check it out

[Jeff]

Good post. Do you think comScore is reporting inaccurate numbers? Are you surprised that it's difficult to find out the basis for their report.

Whenever I read these reports, I always take them as a rough guide and never as an absolute truth. As Benjamin Disraeli said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."

That's not to say there's no value. I look at these reports as a rough estimate.

The most accurate measure of activity would be to query each of the respective IM networks and ask how many unique accounts logged in over the same period (a month sounds about right). This would give you a rough idea of the total user community, although it will be skewed somewhat by those IM freaks who have multiple accounts (yes, I am one). I'm sure they could also tell you the geographic breakdown, just as Google Analytics does for websites.

But good luck getting Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Skype, etc. to share this information. It's better for them to create an impression of a vast network, and let's not quibble about the details. This way, they can charge advertisers higher rates.

[WebUrs]

Jeff good point but the comScore Networks saga continues here:

• comScore networks - update 2006-04-21

There is some more research links added to the above posting and data from Europe shows that comScore's findings cannot be collaborated by other studies (e.g., Germany or U.S.).

Maybe you need to write a comment for the above blog :-)