Skype Is Officially Going Offline

After Monday, Skype, the industry-leading online video calling service that has been in operation for more than 20 years, will permanently shut down.

In February, Microsoft, the company that runs Skype, said that the service will be shut down until May 5 and encouraged users to join Microsoft Teams, a free communication tool that includes video calling.

According to a blog post earlier this year by Microsoft’s VP of collaborative apps and platforms Jeff Teper, “Skype has been an integral part of shaping modern communications and supporting countless meaningful moments, and we are honored to have been part of the journey.”

In 2003, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis founded Skype, which started off as an online phone call service. Later on, it also enabled free private messaging and video calls between members. The Washington Post claims that it was one among the first video conferencing apps and that its user base grew to over 300 million at one point.

Skype was acquired by eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005. In 2009, a consortium of investors purchased eBay’s majority stake, and they later sold the video calling business to Microsoft.

However, as video calling and messaging options like Zoom, WhatsApp, and Slack have become more and more popular, Skype’s user base has decreased in recent years. In early 2020, there were about 40 million users of the app; by 2023, that number had dropped to 36 million.

According to Microsoft, Skype users may transfer all of their contacts and chats to Teams instantly.