IM Market

http://www.instantmessagingplanet.com/

http://www.radicati.com/

http://www.radicati.com/uploaded_files/news/IM_PR.pdf

Instant Messaging Market, 2005-2009

179 Pages. This study by The Radicati Group, ?Instant Messaging Market, 2005-2009,? provides an in-depth analysis of the worldwide instant messaging market, including installed base, market share, breakouts by region, and analysis of key vendor products.

Use of instant messaging amongst consumer and business users continues to increase, and is expected to drive the instant messaging market from 867 million accounts in 2005 to approximately 1.2 billion accounts in 2009, according to the latest Radicati Group study. The study includes an indepth IM market forecast and analysis as well as results of a survey of IM use within 523 organizations worldwide.

Radicati Group found that the majority of IM traffic in 2005 still exists mainly on the public IM networks (12.5 billion IMs sent per day), where the technology first took hold.

More than 28 million business users worldwide are sending nearly 1 billion messages each day this year alone. The IDC report forecasted 60 million enterprise instant messaging seats in 2006, and more than 140 million in 2009.

US based AOL – owned by media giant Time Warner – is currently the market leader in instant messaging with a 56% market share, according to research firm Radicati.

According to figures gathered by ComScore Media Metrix, America Online has more than 40 million users on its AIM and ICQ instant messaging networks. Yahoo has 20 million users and MSN Messenger has 14 million.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4180182.stm

IM is most popular with users aged 18-29 and 80% of people in this age group say they use it to chat to friends and family while at work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4552405.stm

http://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2005/07/26/linkdossier_instant_messaging_

Instant Messaging Market Share in the US

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082301588.html

How Americans use instant messaging (September 1, 2004)

http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Instantmessage_Report.pdf