A few months back I was watching Apple’s Rock N’ Roll event (this post has been in my drafts half written since then!), and one thing mentioned that really struck me was the number of registered iTunes users who have registered credit cards – a whopping 100m.
I’ve seen the comparisons done between social networks (“omg, Facebook is bigger than Brazil!”), but hearing the iTunes figure made me realise that I have no clue how that stacks up against the other big hitters in the online world, so I did some research…
Registered Users
Ebay – 88.4 million
Paypal – 75.4 million
Skype – 480.5
Facebook – 300m
iTunes – 100m
Gmail – 146m
Yahoo Mail – 285
Windows Live Mail (msn/hotmail) – 343m
Wikipedia – 10.5m registered (only 148k ‘active’)
I’m still shocked that iTunes has more credit cards registered than Paypal, that’s a very impressive asset. I’m going to try dig up the equivalent for Amazon, but it’s tricky to find. The skype numbers should be taken with a pinch (or a truckload) of salt, as their definition of “Registered User” is basically any skype account ever created, including ones that were never used, have been inactive for years or multiple accounts for the one person.
Graphs
I thought some graphs might be nice so I did that too:
Definitions
Ebay – All users, excluding users of Half.com, StubHub, and our Korean subsidiaries (Gmarket and Internet Auction Co.), who bid on, bought, listed or sold an item within the previous 12-month period. Users may register more than once, and as a result, may have more than one account.
Paypal – All registered accounts that successfully sent or received at least one payment or payment reversal through the PayPal system or Bill Me Later accounts that are currently able to transact and that received a statement within the last 12 months.
Skype – Cumulative number of unique user accounts, which includes, among other things, users who may have registered via non-Skype based websites and users that have more than one account.
Wikipedia – Active: Users who have performed an action in the last 30 days.
Sources
Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Bing Mail, Ebay, Paypal, Skype, Facebook, Wikipedia,
Let me know if there’s any other companies you want me to add to the stats.
2 Comments
Ava Seave
This info is really interesting. I'm working on a report for the J school at Columbia. Did you by any chance update these numbers more recently? I am particularly interested in tracking down iTunes registrants because of mag and newspaper apps. Any help greatly apprecitaed.
Peter Tanham
I haven't updated the numbers recently I'm afraid. The best place to look is their investor relations section of each company's website, where they publish these types of figures.
http://www.apple.com/investor/
Also, have a look at the most recent Apple WWDC Keynote presentations, which is where Steve Jobs last said this figure.