Image: EmailToolTester
As soon as staff was sent to work from home at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, employee online calendars were filled with virtual meetings. Because of the unprecedented and rapid shift to remote work, managers were anxious about losing touch with their reports. As a result, telecommuters were inundated with meetings that were unnecessary, time-consuming, disruptive to the workday, boring and irritating. This result was quickly dubbed Zoom fatigue.
SEE: Zoom 101: A guidebook for beginners and business pros (TechRepublic Premium)
Yet, according to a survey by EmailToolTester, Zoom not only prevailed but rose above all other similar platforms, including Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Skype. Zoom was named the most popular virtual call/meeting platform in the world and ranked No. 1 in 44 of the 118 countries polled.
The platforms used in the study were:
- Skype
- Slack
- Google Meet
- Zoom Meetings
- Microsoft Teams
- Google Hangouts
- Houseparty
- GoToMeeting
- RingCentral Video
- ClickMeeting
- U Meeting
- BigBlueButton
- Bluejeans Meetings
- Lifesize
- Glip
- Nextiva
Image: EmailToolTester
Countries that named Zoom the preferred app included Japan, the U.K., the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Russia and South Korea. In the U.S., Zoom boasts 59.9% of the online market share. Zoom has 300 million daily meeting participants.
Meanwhile, 41 countries–including Poland, Iceland, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, each with a ruling market share of more than 40%–said Microsoft Teams was the No. 1 go-to digital meeting platform.
Coming in at No. 3 was Google Meet, with 21 countries such as Denmark, Italy and Romania choosing the platform. In Romania, Google Meet holds just under 50% of the market share.
Trailing behind in fourth place was Skype, which saw the biggest loss with a 25.8% drop year-over-year in market share.
“Video call platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams are all-powerful players in keeping people and businesses connected and have become increasingly imperative since the pandemic,” said Robert Brandl, founder and CEO of EmailToolTester. “Sadly, Skype has struggled to keep up with the likes of Zoom since they started adding pertinent features and improving the quality of their calls which caused Zoom to become most people’s choice of application, with Skype becoming a thing of the past.”
SEE: The future of work: Tools and strategies for the digital workplace (ZDNet/TechRepublic special feature) | Download the free PDF version (TechRepublic)
Zoom owns almost half–48.7%–of the global market share and has seen the biggest year-on-year growth of all the platforms, with a 22.3% increase.
The demand for video conferencing platforms is higher than ever, and the global video conferencing market size is expected to reach $10.92 billion by 2027.
Methodology: EmailToolTester’s study analyzed global search data for 16 of the most popular video call platforms around the world, in 122 countries, to calculate their current market share. Global market share was then calculated using the total search data for all 16 platforms, across all 122 countries.
