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MSN Messenger is king of all IMs?

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief April 12, 2006 · 1 min read

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(via ArsTechnica)

According to a recent study by comScore Networks, there’s a decent chance that it’s MSN Messenger, which lassoed in 61 percent of worldwide instant messaging (IM) market share.

Besides determining the leading IM client, the survey also returned a hodgepodge of other interesting results. For instance, Europe has more people (82 million) using IM than the United States (69 million) does, which amounts to 49 percent and 37 percent of web users in the respective locations. In the United States, MSN Messenger usage is about even with AOL Instant Messenger usage while Yahoo’s IM client only trails by a few notches. One other interesting point mentioned in the survey: 14 percent of all instant messengers use Skype, but that only amounts to 3 percent of IM users in the United States.

Unbelievable.

And I thought MSN must be the least used IM? Well, I notice though that most companies have MSN Messenger as their IM of choice. Or is it because MSN comes with every Windows OS?

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

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30 Comments

Alfred Dehaney · 14 years ago

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Dave Starr · 20 years ago

A few mentions here of Trillian and other IM agregators. Here’s areally interestinging-looking start-up that does more than integrate IM .. it intergates your whole personal web space, Haven’t wrung it out yet, but somehting to watch:

http://www2.goowy.com/webtop/

Dave Starr · 20 years ago

I’m long past teen/college age so I can’t say what might be happening at some levels, but I doubt your mobile blog sources as to the US ‘catching up’ … SMS is still totally unknown to many mobile phone users and a distinct novelty to those few who know what it is. It (SMS) may become big with the younger set, but it will be beyond my lifetime if not before yours when it is ever used by professionals as it is in the Philippines.

Some years ago we visited my in-laws in Bulacan and my wife wanted to ask her mom’s doctor something about mom’s health .. without a second thought she texted the doc and the doc responded in a few minutes with an answer. In the US you don’t even talk to a doctor on voice … and for the doc to touch a keypad to deal with a mere ‘lay person’ … not very likely.

It’s a culture think far more than a technical issue .. although with the outlandish prices for texting in US it makes no sense.

Miguel · 20 years ago

AIM also has no offline messages, right? Perhaps MSN is just following the US leader.

I read somewhere (one of the mobile blogs in my reading list) that the US is already catching up in SMS usage.

Dave Starr · 20 years ago

Some good comments here, glad some others have found Trillian … makes the ‘who is better’ arguement moot. Like Migs I was 100% an ICQ guy, in it’s early days it was very good, before it became so hopelessly loaded with ‘features’, but when I took a government job they blocked it .. how crass, expecing me to work instead of message. ;-) So I jumped to YM! because the Y! programmers were more clever (sneaky) than ICQ’s.

You’ll never see the use of SMS in the US as you do in the Philippines (or in Japan!), becuase US carriers discouraged it in early days and now price SMS messages way more expensive than voice minutes, on some plans a single SMS message costs as much as voice 100 minutes, so many users never even bother with it

Fleeb · 20 years ago

Yeah, that’s what I don’t like MSN – no offline messages. However, the Live Beta now supports offline messages. And why it took them (MS) too long to do this? I don’t know.

Dave Starr · 20 years ago

It’s hard for me to believe that such a high percentage re reporting using MSN Messenegr. MSN is reminicient of Micrpsoft a few years ago when Will Bill was trying to ignore the Internt. The most critical ‘miss’ in MSN hits and missues’ is that it only works when the intended redipient is on line. This is especially trying when attempting to coordinate with folks in the US and the Philippines at the same time. If your contact is off line, MSN comes back to you and says, “do you wnat to send an email”? we’ll D’oh, if I wnated to seand an email I would have done so. With YM! (by far the smartest of the bunch),. your message goes into your contacts inbox to be answered when he she next come son line .. in an hour or in a week .. try it, you’ll like it.
YM! also has excellent PC to PC voice, great for meetups when ur tired of typing/texting. For those in business or heavily into IM, I highly recommend http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/
This is a totally free client that works with all the IM’s at the same time, so no need to argue about ‘the best’ and no need to miss friends on different services.

Migs · 20 years ago

Thanks for the reminder on MSN Live Beta. I tried downloading it using Firefox and… I couldn’t press the “Download” (AJAX style) button. Never mind.

I don’t have any MSN contacts anyway. I may have soon, since it’s more popular in the Asian countries I’m going to be dealing with in my new job.

Fleeb · 20 years ago

In Internet Cafes, I always notice most people using YM. In offices, it’s indeed MSN. I got Messenger Live Beta and it got more features than YM, but all of my contacts are in Y!.

Perhaps it’s about the features?

PML · 20 years ago

I’m on a Mac and I like using iChatAV because it has excellent video and audio conferencing quality. But of course, most of the people I know are on Windows so there aren’t that many people I know whom I can Video chat with on iChatAV. I should be able to chat with other AIM 5.5 up users who are on Windows (haven’t tried it yet), but as was pointed out, more people in the Philippines use YM. YM has a version for Macs and it allows me to video chat (audio doesn’t work) with other YM users who are on Windows but the quality is just awful when webcamming between the two OSs. Maybe one day when video conferencing becomes more and more mainstream, people will be able to video chat with each other regardless of what messenger account they have (much like how programs like trillian and adium allow you to manage different IM clients with just one client).

Miguel · 20 years ago

It would be interesting to look back in history and find out why Yahoo! Messenger is dominant. I just started using it when a friend of mine introduced it to me. I was using ICQ at that time, but their firewall blocked it.

Of course, PC-based IM in the Philippines is nothing compared to SMS.

joachim guanzon · 20 years ago

MSN is indeed king, pero just to be safe i use adiumx and log into all my accounts.

i think gaim and trillian are good multi-account messengers for linux and windows.

jangelo · 20 years ago

YM choice is culture- and geo-based. Your choice of IM would be what you’re friends are using. And somehow, Yahoo was the first portal/service to become dominant here in the country. That’s why it’s difficult to just introduce a new IM client (i.e. Gtalk) and expect it to rise in popularity soon–unless it supports multiple protocols/services (i.e. Trillian, Gaim, and even Meebo).

Lloyd · 20 years ago

I’ve been using MSN Messenger for a couple of years now. I have to agree with the study, most users especially in the U.S. are using either AOL or MSN Messenger wherein MSN has a slight advantage (built in windows).

Feature wise, MSN beats AOL, Yahoo and ICQ messenger. Voice and video quality is superb than the others.

Too bad that majority of users in the Philippines are using YM. Maybe because the very first thing that pops on their mind is Yahoo.

Noemi Dado · 20 years ago

I have never used MSN. Maybe in Europe. I use AIM and YM because my 3 siblings in the states use them. And GMail chat if I happen to see them opening their gmail.