Skype will be retired on May 5, 2025, Microsoft said, so the company can put its full weight behind Teams.
The record shows this was a long time coming. Microsoft launched Skype for Business in 2015, then introduced Teams in 2016. In 2017 it revealed plans to phase out Skype for Business, and finished the job in 2021. That same year it picked Teams as the integrated communications app on Windows 11, which left Skype on the sidelines. In December 2024, Microsoft stopped letting Skype users add credit or buy Skype phone numbers.
Skype’s own numbers tell the other half. When it filed for an IPO in 2010, it reported 560 million registered users and 124 million monthly active users. Microsoft skipped the listing and bid $8.5 billion for the company in 2011. Skype hit a peak of 300 million users in 2013. In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, Microsoft said it had grown 70% month on month to 40 million daily users. The last public figure came in early 2023: more than 36 million people using it daily.
Teams has 320 million users. Jeff Teper, president of Microsoft 365 collaborative apps and platforms, told TechCrunch that consumer calling minutes in Teams have grown fourfold in two years, since Microsoft rolled out a rebuilt desktop and web app. He declined to say how many of those 320 million are consumers.
“Skype took a bump, as did Teams, during the pandemic, and Skype has largely been pretty stable in the last couple of years,” Teper said. “And we felt the time, and the feedback, was such that we could make the move.”
Users have 10 weeks. They can sign in to Teams with their Skype credentials and have their chats and contacts migrate automatically, or export their data. Anyone who does nothing by May 5 will see their data kept until the end of the year, then deleted.
Teams Free, the version Microsoft is recommending, adds calendar integrations. It does not support calling mobile and landline numbers, and it will not take calls on a Skype number. Amit Fulay, Microsoft’s VP of product, said usage patterns have changed. Subscription renewals for those phone features end on April 3. Users with credit left will get a Skype Dial Pad in the web portal and in Teams.
