Skype will be retired on May 5, Microsoft said, giving users 10 weeks to decide what to do with their accounts. The company is putting its effort behind Teams instead.
Microsoft has not said how many people are affected. Its last public figure came in 2023, when it reported more than 36 million daily users, far below the peak of 300 million reached in 2013.
What users can do
Until the shutdown, Skype users can download Teams and sign in with their Skype credentials. Chats and contacts then move over automatically, and Skype keeps working alongside until May 5, 2025. Anyone who prefers can use the built-in tool to export their data instead. Microsoft VP of product Amit Fulay told TechCrunch the aim is that nobody loses “their contacts, their memories.”
A user who takes no action by May 5 will have their data held until the end of the year and then deleted, Skype says.
Microsoft is steering people toward Teams Free. It offers things Skype lacked, such as calendar integrations, but it drops the phone-call features that defined Skype: calls to mobile and landline numbers, and incoming calls on a Skype number. Fulay confirmed Teams Free will not support PSTN services, citing changing habits. “People have mobile data plans, and when this [telephony] functionality came out many years ago, that wasn’t the case,” he said.
The timeline
The record shows the exit was telegraphed. Teams arrived in 2016, and Microsoft announced plans to phase out Skype for Business in 2017, finishing the job in 2021. That same year it picked Teams as the built-in communications app on Windows 11. In December 2024, Microsoft stopped letting Skype users add credit or buy Skype numbers. Subscription renewals end on April 3. For legacy users with credit left, a Skype Dial Pad will stay available in the Skype web portal and in Teams.
Microsoft says Teams is ready for personal use. Jeff Teper, president of Microsoft 365 collaborative apps and platforms, said consumer calling minutes in Teams have grown fourfold in two years, though he would not say how many consumers are in its 320 million user base. “Putting all our focus behind Teams will let us give a simpler message and drive faster innovation,” he said.
Skype’s long decline
When Skype filed for an IPO in 2010, it disclosed 560 million registered users and 124 million monthly active users. Microsoft bought it in 2011 with an $8.5 billion bid. A bump came in March 2020, when daily users jumped 70% month-on-month to 40 million as lockdowns kept people apart. But smartphones and a wave of messaging apps wore down the user count, and WhatsApp passed 2 billion users in 2020.
One awkward point remains: Teams began as a business product and still feels like one. Teper sees no problem. “I think a lot of people will make the transition,” he said, pointing to Word and Excel as brands used at work and at home.
