IM in Business 2015 - 2019

Study Shows Growing Adoption of Instant Messaging In Businesses

A new study revealed that there is an 'explosive growth' in the use of Instant Messaging in businesses. Comparing the use of Instant Messaging (IM) in companies to consumer use, Radicati Group found out that the business use of IM is growing at a much faster pace.

Key statistics from the study showed that for this year, the number of global Instant Messaging accounts totals to more than 3.2 billion and is expected to further grow at an annual average rate of 4 percent in the next four years. By the end of 2019, Instant Messaging accounts could reach over 3.8 billion.

This is much higher, almost double than the predicted Instant Messaging growth in 2013, which was 1.7 billion. These figures do not include Mobile Messaging or mobile chat that is also popular among younger users and consumers using other technologies such as social networking applications.

The study revealed that in the workplace, traditional IM is being used in the same way that employees and business users are using email for communication.

Instant messaging in office

"IM use in the workplace can be tightly monitored and controlled by IT and users are expected to use it much in the same way they use email," the study stated.

Instant messaging in the modern workplace allows co-workers to chat and communicate with each other quickly, privately and in real-time. It is used to communicate with clients and colleagues. But compared to phone calls, instant messaging is said to be less intrusive. Instant messaging is one of the best new tools available for businesses.

In the consumer space, Mobile Messaging is the application of choice for reaching family and friends. However, the study also forecasts the strong adoption of business users to Mobile Messaging or mobile chat due to its simplicity and efficiency.

The study compiled and analyzed key data and statistics on business and consumer use of Instant Messaging, Mobile Messaging including mobile instant messaging or chat and mobile texting, including:instant messenger

Instant Messaging - worldwide users and accounts, breakouts by enterprise and public IM accounts, IM traffic growth forecast, average number of IMs sent/received per user/day, average user time spent on IM/day
Public IM - business vs. consumer users and accounts, breakouts by region, business size, four-year forecasts
Enterprise IM - users and accounts, breakouts by region, business size, four-year forecasts
Mobile Messaging - users and accounts, four-year forecasts, breakouts by region
Mobile Text Messaging - business and consumer messages set/received per user/day

Instant Messaging vs. social networks

Instant messaging is growing each year. In an ever more connected world, millions of people are seeing the advantage of instant messaging. As of mid-2014, it was forecasted that globally, 50 billion instant messages will be sent each day. By the end of 2014, more than 18 trillion instant messages were sent through various platforms.

If we look at the data of active users by social platform, it shows that social networks are indeed competing with traditional instant messengers and chat applications.

As of January 2015, Facebook announced that its monthly active user accounts reached 1.36 billion while Facebook Messenger registered 600 million monthly active users and the same with Whatsapp (600 million) and WeChat 468 million.

Author:Kelsey Jones