Microsoft Teams Reaches 13 Million Active Users, Possibly Overtaking Slack

Microsoft is sharing some important details for its Microsoft Teams product. The company has been rapidly updating the service ever since its 2016 launch and with heavy competition from its main competitor Slack, the journey has been an interesting one for both the companies. This week, for the first time ever, Microsoft is sharing usage details on Teams. The reason?

It might have finally taken over Slack.

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Microsoft shared on Thursday that Teams is being used by 13 million daily active users (DAU). The service also has 19 million weekly active users, which is definitely a massive number, considering Teams launch much later than Slack.

Here’s the interesting part, though: that 13 million DAU number is higher than Slack’s daily active users. When Slack last announced its DAU number in late January, the company had “more than 10 million” daily active users. Since then, Slack IPO’d only 3 weeks ago, and haven’t released an updated DAU number yet. So there is a chance Slack has a higher number of daily active users than Microsoft Teams, but for now, Microsoft is on the lead.

Slack’s stock price had gone down slightly on Thursday as well, though it’s hard to tell if that had anything to do with the Microsoft announcement. Either way, the competition between Slack and Microsoft has been a tight one, and Microsoft Teams’ growth has also accelerated quite a lot as you can see from the graph above,  so there is a very good chance of Microsoft leading the market right now, putting Slack at second place.

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Conversation 17 comments

  • spacein_vader

    Premium Member
    12 July, 2019 - 6:13 am

    <p>This is a great example of how monopoly power (in this case MS Office,) can be used to beat competition. It doesn't matter if Slack is better for your use case, if Teams is free with your Office sub that's what you'll use.</p><p><br></p><p>See also Google with Android.</p>

    • wp7mango

      12 July, 2019 - 6:38 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#441378">In reply to spacein_vader:</a></em></blockquote><p>You're assuming that this has only happened because of a monopoly. But you haven't considered that Teams might be as good as, or better than, Slack.</p><p><br></p><p>Nowadays, it's much more difficult for monopoly alone to achieve success. People are much more aware of choices. But ultimately, if Teams is a good quality product (which it is) and offers value for money (which it does) then it deserves to succeed.</p><p><br></p><p>It's also good for Slack to have competition. </p>

      • spacein_vader

        Premium Member
        12 July, 2019 - 6:42 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#441379">In reply to WP7Mango:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>It may very well be better than Slack, I don't use either. But no matter how good it is its only gained that kind of market share where an incumbent already exists beacuse its bundled free with something you already use. </p>

        • wp7mango

          12 July, 2019 - 6:51 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#441380">In reply to spacein_vader:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Except that it's not necessarily bundled free…</p><p><br></p><ul><li>Office 365 Business does <em>not </em>include Teams.</li><li>Office 365 Business Premium <em>does </em>include Teams.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Teams as a standalone product comes in various options, including a free option. But, again, the free option is not bundled.</p>

          • legend

            Premium Member
            12 July, 2019 - 9:35 am

            <blockquote><em><a href="#441381">In reply to WP7Mango:</a></em></blockquote><p>Office 365 Business doesn't have any Office 365 services (like SharePoint Online, Exchange Online…), only the Office 365 Suite is included. Office 365 Business Essentials (which is cheaper) includes Teams. And even then, Microsoft Teams is available for free and there is no need to buy an O365 subscription.</p>

            • jrickel96

              12 July, 2019 - 12:11 pm

              <blockquote><em><a href="#441420">In reply to legend:</a></em></blockquote><p>There's a free version and an upgraded version.</p><p><br></p><p>There are three tiers of Business subscriptions and then Enterprise level. Enhanced features of Teams is available on most to go along with Sharepoint, Exchange Online, and many others. And companies can mix and match all those subscriptions on the fly.</p>

    • jrickel96

      12 July, 2019 - 12:09 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#441378">In reply to spacein_vader:</a></em></blockquote><p>Most orgs I work with have been perfectly willing to pay for Slack. But Teams has grown. You can schedule international conference calls in it, integrate seamlessly with Outlook, connect it to GitHub, Jira, Asana, Salesforce, etc directly. Use Sharepoint, send out guess passes, etc. </p><p><br></p><p>Teams was not near Slack when it launched, but it has a lot of productivity features that make it a unique product. We went from having to have several Windows open to do work to being able to eliminate most because Teams can integrate with most other tools out there you use. Slack is WAY behind on that front.</p>

      • shogun06

        12 July, 2019 - 10:41 pm

        <blockquote>We've noticed the upgrades as they have transpired. There are still some things that drive me bonkers, but, for the most part, it's made collaboration much easier for our team.</blockquote><blockquote><a href="#441473"><em>In reply to jrickel96:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p>

  • dontbe evil

    12 July, 2019 - 7:23 am

    <p>Damn I miss team, my new company uses slack</p>

  • Tony Barrett

    12 July, 2019 - 7:31 am

    <p>Not sure how MS are actually achieving this – unless they're giving it away (which it sounds like they are). There are some god-awful problems with Teams. One internal project here refused to use it, keeping Slack because it 'just worked'.</p><p>Teams is more a case of 'marketing' over 'usability', and it shows!</p>

    • jrickel96

      12 July, 2019 - 12:06 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#441395">In reply to ghostrider:</a></em></blockquote><p>It does a lot more than Slack and Slack doesn't just work – Slack has its problems too.</p><p><br></p><p>I know of a lot of orgs that switched to Teams because it works for them now, it is always adding features, and it is not an extra cost (they already subscribe to O365).</p><p><br></p><p>As Teams adds features, Slack will likely lose users due to the bundling. Slack cannot offer the kind of tools that come with O365. </p>

    • Chris Payne

      12 July, 2019 - 1:06 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#441395">In reply to ghostrider:</a></em></blockquote><p>We switched to Teams a year ago and I much prefer it over Slack. The people who lamented the change mostly complained about missing emojis and cosmetic things. I much prefer Teams both from a UX as well as a management and security standpoint.</p><p><br></p><p>And btw, both Teams and Slack are free on some level, so they're both "giving it away."</p>

  • Albatross

    12 July, 2019 - 9:17 am

    <p>The most recent update for Win10-1903 (early July) caused Teams launch at start-up on my PC. This infuriated me. Seems like a stunt to grow their daily active users number.</p>

    • jrickel96

      12 July, 2019 - 12:04 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#441417">In reply to Albatross:</a></em></blockquote><p>When you install Teams, it will automatically install to start up with your PC unless you disable it.</p>

  • codymesh

    12 July, 2019 - 11:52 am

    <p>product bundling = win</p>

  • skane2600

    12 July, 2019 - 3:51 pm

    <p>I wonder if any of these kind of tools have actually helped the bottom-line of a company over other methods of communication and collaboration. </p>

  • bqg90805

    13 July, 2019 - 1:00 pm

    <p>This site is such a Microsoft echo chamber. I'm here for the first time and 90% of opinions expressed are pro Microsoft. It's like going to Verge to read about Apple. Sorry to see that… </p>

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