Skype today announced that it had reached a new milestone clocking an impressive 2 billion minutes of calls in a day. The 2 billion minutes is not only video calls, but also includes group chats, and instant messages. Skype has been synonymous with video calling for a long time and though it’s been facing strong competition from the likes of Viber, it still remains a major player.

This boom can in part be attributed to Microsoft that acquired Skype and introduced the video calling app to the Windows Phone platform. It even announced that Skype would eventually be replacing the Redmond-based company’s own Windows Live Messenger. Recently Microsoft also updated Skype for Windows Phone, introducing HD video calling and deeper integration with the phone’s contacts.

Though it is truly an incredible achievement, it is hard not to notice that it pales in comparison to the numbers thrown by social messaging apps like WhatsApp, Kakao Talk and WeChat which have come into existence a long time after Skype. For example back in January, WhatsApp announced that it had processed more than 18 billion messages on a single day. Nevertheless this is more proof that people prefer alternate methods like VoIP and social messaging apps over the traditional methods of communications.

Source: http://www.wasconet.com/skype-hits-a-record-usage-of-2-billion-minutes-a-day/