Slack Active Users, Revenue, Stats For 2021

We have seen many online collaboration apps contribute to the overall growth of the business by easing up team communication in different ways. Some disappear so quickly, but some continue to dominate the market. Slack, the acronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge, is such a collaborative team communication app with exemptional functional qualities. It started as an internal tool for Tiny Speck during the development of the online game, Glitch.

Established in August 2013, it offers a bundle of features and continuous chat rooms under various topics and allows partners to exchange messages, contents, pics, conversations, files, emojis, etc. In the beginning period, Slack has been using like an organizational platform; however, presently, it is also active as a community platform. Slack designed to replace email and improve the efficiency of communication between a group and colleagues.

Using a specific URL or by invitation, a new member can join the team of a workspace.  It eases up communication within the group without texting or emailing, and the discussion will be visible to all members of the group if the conversation is via a public channel. Similarly, members can communicate through private channels, allowing senders to transmit direct messages to specific users, instead of a group of people.

It may look like an instant messaging app and collaboration solution. But it has more features than any other messenger apps offer.  One of the outstanding solutions is its integration features, and it supports many third-party services such as Heroku, IBM Bluemix, Google Drive, Dropbox, Zendesk, GitHub, Runscope, Box, Trello, Zapier, and Crashlytics. With its integration features, you can centralize all the notifications into a single searchable window, helping to make quick decisions.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software))

Now let us check its various statistics.

Key Stats

Slacks have 1,664 employees as of April 2019.

Slack boasts more than 9 million daily active users

Is used by 43% of the Fortune 100 companies

 

Comparison of active users vs. paid users: (Statista)

Even since the launch of Slack in 2013, the American collaboration solution was able to increase its base considerably. Some of the exciting facts are curious. The collaboration solution allows users to communicate within the group, share data, and helps to collaborate on projects.

  • More than half the number of daily users are from outside of the USA.
  • As of January 2019, Slack has more than 10 million daily users.
  • Out of the 10 million+ daily users, 85,000 users are paid-establishment users.
  • The majority of market partners are from the UK, Germany, Japan, Australia, and France.
  • The Global Collaboration software market estimated to grow by about 9.84 billion by 2022.
  • In 2018, Slack was the most popular collaboration software in the USA.
  • 22% of IT Professionals use Slack in the USA.

Most interesting Slack statistic:

In the following information, you can read some of the most interesting statistics of Slack. The team messaging app Slack is a relatively new product in the market, but it could make its impact within a short period.  As per the industrial forecast, it will continue to grow and can contribute much to its enterprise group collaboration and messaging. 

What types of companies are using Slack? (enlyft)

Most of the Computer Software companies are using Slack. However, the significant user patterns are Computer Software 18%; IT section 7%, Marketing, and Advertising 5%.  On a general pattern, companies with a staff strength of 10 to 50 and having a revenue of $10 million use Slack.  

The industry-wise usages of Slack are as follows: (enlyft)

  • Computer Software – 23,331 companies
  • IT and Services – 9,322 companies
  • Marketing – 6,733 companies
  • Internet – 4,417 companies
  • Healthcare and Hospital – 2,950
  • Retail – 2,670 companies
  • Financial companies – 2,468
  • Non-profit Organization – 2,127
  • Construction – 2,002 companies
  • Real Estate – 1,907 companies

Top 10 competitors of Slack

The following are the top 10 competitors of Slack based on their revenue size and funding. (Owler)

  1. Slack has received a funding of $5.8 billion until 2019 and generated a revenue of $674.9 million.
  2. Basecamp generated $25 million.
  3. Skype has received a funding of $26.6 million and has generated a revenue of $1.7 billion.
  4. Monday got a funding of $234.1 million and could generate $120 million in revenue.
  5. Asana had so far received a funding of $213.5 million and generated a revenue of $185 million.
  6. Quip had received a funding of $46 million and was able to generate a revenue of $2 million.
  7. TeamViewer was able to generate $243.7million in revenue until 2019.
  8. Trello was able to generate an income of $7 million with an investment of $10.3million.
  9. Redbooth has received a funding of $19.8 million and could generate a revenue of $10.2 million.
  10. Wrike, with a staff strength of 1000 employees, has received a funding of $26 million until 2019 and could generate $84.3 million in revenue.
  11. Zinc, with a funding of $16 million, was able to generate a revenue of $3.5 million.

Quick roundup facts about Slack usage and other relevant information: (kommandotech.com)

Even though Slack is not yet in the profit mode, it was successful in keeping its presence live in the collaborative team communication app fraternity. The aim of the company to stay as an alternative source for effective communication between colleagues and team members by replacing email has received immense acceptability in the market. It is evident from the facts that it could increase its daily users to 12 million. Also, another promising note about Slack is that many companies started using the communication platform, and more than 50% of the fortune 100 companies have already subscribed to it.

  • 135,983 companies are using Slack.
  • More than 50% of fortune 100 companies, i.e., 65 fortune 100 companies are already using Slack.
  • Slack can reduce 32% of email communication and 23% of the meeting.
  • On average, a Slack user spends 10 hours a week on the platform.
  • 12 million people are using Slack daily.
  • $4.22 billion is the revenue forecast for the year 2025.
  • The projected revenue for the year 2019 was $390 million, but it could generate $400 million.
  • About 91% of companies use a minimum of two messaging apps.
  • Monthly, Slack has been exchanging more than 1.5 billion messages
  • The free version of Slack is more popular; about 90% use the free version.
  • We can find a 50% increase in paid subscribers in the year 2019 than in 2018.
  • Slack has subscribers over 150 countries.

Top 10 countries using Slack: (enlyft)

  • Revenue generation model of Slack: (Investopedia)USA – 73,098 customers
  • UK – 7,842 customers
  • Canada – 5,780 customers
  • India – 3,510 customers
  • France – 3,026 customers
  • Germany – 2,956 customers
  • Spain – 2,196 customers
  • Australia – 1,676 customers
  • Netherlands – 1,378 customers
  • Italy – 869 customers

The primary source of Slack’s income is from the subscription.  Slack subscribe to large organizations, and it offers monthly, annual, and enterprise grid subscriptions to the customers. Apart from this, it provides free basic service. The enterprise grid rate will be provided separately.  

By using state of the art information technology, it offers team message/communication solutions by using cloud-based, flexible, and intuitive tools.  As a result, companies can achieve increase productivity, quick communication among the group, and help to meet the targets.  It has grown beyond a mere chat room service and can integrate into many digital services.

  • The monthly fee is $6.67 per user for the standard subscription
  • The monthly fee for plus subscription is $12.50 per user.
  • More than 600,000 organizations are using Slack.
  • Slack has more than 95,000 paid subscribers as of April 2019.
  • As of 31st January 2019, Slack had generated a revenue of $400.6 million, which was 82% more than the previous year.
  • Net loss for the year 2019 recorded as $138.9 million. In 2018 the loss was $140.1 million, and in 2017 the loss was $146.9 million.

Activity statistics of Slack: (Hostsorter)

The platform offers an efficient and enjoyable working experience, as it constantly upgrades the technology for communication. Therefore, people and corporate clients find it is a convenient mode of communication tool, enabling them to get connected, exchange views among the group, and thus helps to make quick decisions.

  • For better user experience, it constantly upgrades its technology.
  • From the date of its launch, within 24 hours, it could make 8,000 customers.
  • Slack launched its service after 4 years of software development.
  • As of 2020, it has 10 million+ Daily Active Users.
  • As of 2020, it has more than 85,000 paid corporate clients.
  • Generally, a user spends 2 hours actively on the Slack platform per day.
  • The user generally keeps Slack open on their devices for 10 hours in a day.
  • As per the 2018 statistics, male users are more than female users. When 55.3% of male users engage with Slack, only 447.7% of females use it.
  • Nearly half of the incoming Slack messages to North America are from France, Germany, UK, and Japan.
  • Percentage of Slack usages are, the USA 43%, Japan 13.5%, India 5.9%, Canada 3.6% and UK 3.4%, etc.
  • The subdomain visit and spending time of Slack users are as follows; Slack.com 16.38%, files.slack.com 1.65%, enterprise.slack.com 1.37%, api.slack.com 0.78%, mercari.slack.com 0.75%, etc.
  • The daily page view number per visitor is about 3.84 pages.
  • Top traffic keywords to Slack are Slack, Google calendar, Slack download, Giphy, and Download slack.

Investment, Public Share Offer and Valuation: (Investopedia)

  • Interactive analysis: (Forbes)On 20 June 2019, Slack went public, not by offering IPO but allowing existing shareholders to sell their stock public. (Investopedia)
  • Market cap as on March 2020 is $19 billion (Forbes)
  • In August 2018, it had a market value of $7 billion (macrotrends)
  • $26 was the reference price per share. (Investopedia)
  • It could make $1.4 billion in 10 rounds of funding. (Investopedia)
  • Market cap as on March 2020 is $15.3B (macrotrends)
  • Estimated revenue for the year 2020 is $600 million (macrotrends)

Barging into the NYSC with a stock symbol WORK, Slack’s market cap stands at $19 billion, which is almost the double of 1918, many consider as an inflated situation.  But the valuation is justifiable considering the $400 million revenue for the year 2019.  In the following, we will have a comparative analysis of Slack with its next competitors, Zoom and Twilio. The two communication platform players offer video communication and cloud communications. We will also have some comparison study with Microsoft’s Teams application, which is offering along with Office 365 as a bundled feature.

Market cap comparison: (Forbes)

  1. Slack: $19 billion
  2. Zoom: $24 billion
  3. Twilio: 18 billion

The Purchase to Sales ratio of Slack is higher than Twilio and lower than Zoom. Its Purchase to Sales ratio is also higher than the Enterprise Software Players such as Microsoft and Salesforce. (Forbes)

  • For the projection of Slack’s P/S, the matrix used the expected 2020 revenue, which stands 32x. The same projection stands to 44x for Zoom and 16x for Twilio.
  • The P/S ratio is 7x level ahead of MS and Salesforce.

The revenue growth of Slack is higher than Twilio and below to Zoom. (Forbes)

  • For FY 2019, Slack registered 82% growth, but Zoom surpassed the growth rate by registering 118%. During the same period, Twilio could register only 44% growth, which is halfway below to Slack.
  • Given the market trend, Zoom continues to perform much better than Slack and, as a result expecting to fetch higher market appreciation.

Slack enjoys a better gross margin comparing to its next competitors, which directly attributes to its low hosting costs.  By and large, customers use Slack for transmitting text and images. However, Slack continues to register significant loss, which is higher than its peers.  Slack is struggling against Microsoft’s Teams, which is a relatively new entrant in the online collaboration market.

  • Slack’s reported loss for the FY 2019 is $138.9 million. (Techcrunch)
  • Zoom could reach the break-even point in FY 2019. (Forbes)
  • Microsoft’s Teams application is offering its services bundled with Office 356. (Forbes)
  • When Slack had10 million DAU in January 2019, Teams had 13 million DAU in June 2019. Teams show a much faster growth rate. (Forbes)
  • More than 180 million subscribers are for MS Office 365, which means it has enough potential to grow its customer base over the coming days. (Forbes)
  • Since MS Office 365 does not offer the collaborative app as a unique app, the possible access and chances of using the app are relatively high as you don’t have to subscribe for it additionally. (Forbes)

Some unknown facts about Slack: (Kommando Tech)

  • Slack offers more than 1,500 app integrations.
  • From 80 staff, it grew to 385 employees in 14 months.
  • The moment Slack went public in June 2019, its worth increased to $20 billion on its first day of trading.
  • Slack’s share nose-dived more than 43% the moment the company went public.
  • The Possible violation of Federal Security Laws and subsequent investigation was a reason for a 4% drop in share value in September 2019.
  • More than 60% of venture capital-funded startups use Slacks.
  • Microsoft Teams was able to draw significant customers in 3 years than Slack could have in 6 years.

Number of Slack DAU and Paid users from 2014 to 2019: (Statista)

  • From the beginning of February 2014, Slack had 16,000 Daily Active Users.
  • By 12th February 2015, the DAU numbers reached 500,000, and it registered 135,000 paid users.
  • By December 15, 2015, the DAU touched 2,000,000, and paid users could see a rise of 570,000.
  • In February 2016, DAU increased to 2,300,000, and it had 675,000 paid users.
  • By October 2016, DAU further increased to 4,000,000, and paid users have substantial growth of 1, 250,000.
  • In September 2017 Slacked registered 6,000,000 daily active users and 2,000,000 paid users.
  • By May 2018 the DAU touched to 8,000,000, and paid users stood at 3,000,000
  • On January 29, 2019, the DAU crossed 10 million units, and it had registered 85,000 paid users (organizations).

Slack and its evolution: (Hostsorter)

Some of the facts are very much interesting as well as surprising to you.  Go through the evolution of Slacks and its key functions.

  • The beginning of the software was accidental, which means it was not developed as a commercial collaborative application. The founders initially used this tool as an intercommunication tool while working on other projects.
  • Linefeed was the original codename for Slack.
  • Slack is the short form of ‘Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge.’
  • Slack established in the year 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
  • Present Head Quarters of Slack is in San Francisco, California, in the USA.
  • Steward Butterfield is the founder of Slack.
  • It is a team communication software, allowing people to transmit text and images within a group.
  • As of 2019, it has an estimated value of US$ 8 billion.
  • It can integrate with many third-party applications and can share files, texts, and images.

Growth of Slack and Market Share: (hostsorter)

It has been widely using by many corporate organizations for streamlining communication within the group as it makes file sharing and texting simple and easy. It would be interesting to read below the growth of the company ever since its inception.

  • It is one of the fastest-growing collaboration apps, which offer file sharing and texting within the group.
  • Slack could make a 70% market share in the collaboration platforms.
  • Even though Slack continuously registers operational loss since its inception, it has received sufficient funding.
  • Slack has been demonstrating consistent revenue growth since the establishment.
  • For the development of the company, investors pumped $340 million.
  • As of 2018, Slack had 65.7% male engineers and 34.3% female engineers.
  • Slack started voice calling in 2016.

Conclusion:

Despite Slack shows, a robust growth ever since its inception, the present state of the company is not promising. Contrary to the growth, we could see for the year 2019, which shows 82% revenue growth, Slacks growth in 2018 was 110%.  Looking at the 2020 revenue growth, it shows only 67% growth, whereas it was 89% during the first month of 2018.  Apart from the operational loss, part of the loss attributed to the service disruption compensation. The rapid growth of MS Teams also put stiff challenges for Slack. But Slack has been managing the show with the help of a highly efficient user interface.  However, the competition is fierce, and Slack has to converge all its energy to fight the mighty MS Teams.

Researched by Brian and SaaS Scout team
Researched by Brian and SaaS Scout team

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