On May 5, 2025, an entire era in digital history will end — Microsoft will finally discontinue support and operation of Skype, according to a message on Apps.microsoft.com .
On May 5, 2025, an entire era in digital history will end — Microsoft will finally discontinue support and operation of Skype, according to a message on Apps.microsoft.com .
The service, which appeared in 2002 as a development of the Swede Niklas Zennström and the Dane Janus Friis together with three Estonian programmers — Jaan Tallinn, Ahti Heinle and Priit Kasesalu — became a breakthrough in the implementation of the idea of voice communication. At that time, a test version of the program was tested by 20 users.
And in August of that year, the world saw the official release of Skype. «We’re launching the telecommunications company of the future. We want people to say, ‘I’ll call you,’ not ‘I’ll Skype you,’» Zennstrom said at the time.
International calls were expensive back then, but Skype made them free thanks to VoIP (Voice over IP) technology. The service didn’t require any technical knowledge: all you had to do was install the program, add a contact, and you could call anywhere in the world.
On the first day after its launch, Skype was downloaded more than 10,000 times. And a few months later, the number of users exceeded one million. By 2007, this figure had reached 400 million, and in 2011, Microsoft acquired the service for $8.5 billion. At that time, there were more than 700 million registered users.
With the advent of mobile messengers, Skype began to lose ground. Apple pushed FaceTime and iMessage, WhatsApp added voice calls, Telegram and Viber grew rapidly. Skype did not have time to adapt to the new mobile reality.
The Covid-19 pandemic was particularly painful. At a time when the world was massively switching to video communication, Microsoft decided not to invest in the development of Skype, but instead focused on its other product, Teams. It was a choice in favor of businesses, schools, and government agencies, and it turned out to be the right one: in 2023, Teams had over 320 million users. In contrast, Skype continued to lose its audience.
Microsoft officially announced the end of Skype in February 2025. All accounts were automatically transferred to Microsoft Teams — just enter your Skype username and password.
Skype users’ accounts, along with their chat histories, will be migrated to Microsoft Teams. «These changes will affect both free and paid Skype users, but not Skype for Business users. Skype data will be available to users until January 2026: it can be exported, including chat histories. After that, the service data will be deleted,» the company emphasized.
All Skype users will have the option to upgrade to the free version of Microsoft Teams, which offers many of the core features. «Sign in to Microsoft Teams (free) on any supported device using your Skype credentials, and your contacts and chats will be automatically migrated. You’ll also receive a notification in the Skype app asking you to take action to migrate your data. If you don’t want to use Microsoft Teams Free, you can export your Skype data,» the post says.
Who can replace Skype, except for Microsoft’s Teams? There are many options: WhatsApp, Telegram, Google Meet, FaceTime f,j Slack. By the beginning of 2025, Skype was no longer in the top 10 most popular messengers.
