Team messaging applications have become a cornerstone of the modern-day office. They’ve allowed for quick and easy communication and collaboration among colleagues. 

But once the COVID-19 pandemic forced the majority of the workforce to remote, they became employees’ lifelines to their office. As most employees can no longer pop over to their colleagues’ desk for questions anymore, team messaging software has ensured they still have a way to remain connected and work together.

In this article, we’re going to look at the state of team messaging tools through the numbers — how the software grew, the benefits it brings to its users, and what we expect in the future.

 

How Messaging Tools Shaped the 2021 Workforce

At the start of the ongoing pandemic, team messaging tools quickly became one of the most valuable software solutions you could have in your software stack. Here’s why.

 

Statistics: The Growth of Team Messaging Tools

Team messaging tools grew quickly and exponentially. Here’s a look at the impressive growth of these solutions.

  • The number of organizations using Teams increased from 50,000 in 2017 to 500,000 in 2020. (VentureBeat)
  • Slack was worth almost $20 billion on its first day of trading. (Market Watch)
  • Slack grew from 80 to 385 employees in 14 months. (Business Insider)
  • 70% of teams will rely on team communications tools like Slack by 2022. (Unify Square)
  • Team collaboration software market to grow promisingly and exhibit CAGR of 10.3% by 2026 (Global News Wire)
  • 55% of businesses will consolidate their collaboration tools into a single suite within the next 12-24 months. (Medium)
  • In the first half of 2021, Teams reached 145 million daily active users, which is impressive growth if you consider that the company only had about 75 million daily users in the middle of the year. (Mio Dispatch)

 

Statistics: Messaging Tools Promote a Collaborative Virtual Workspace

The coronavirus pandemic has temporarily taken away the opportunity for face-to-face collaboration team messaging. However, team messaging applications prove that virtual collaboration is still seamless and effective. The statistics below prove how much employees value collaboration in their workspace, even if it’s virtual. 

  • 86% of employees cite lack of collaboration as the main reason for workplace failures. (Fierce)
  • 39% of employees believe that their own organization doesn’t collaborate enough. (Visix)
  • Only 5.9% of companies communicate goals daily. (Clear Company)
  • Businesses with effective communication are 50% more likely to have lower employee turnover. (Clear Company)
  • 33% of employees say the ability to collaborate makes them more loyal. (The Economist)
  • Employee productivity increases by 20 to 25% in organizations where employees feel connected. (McKinsey)
  • A survey in 2015 of teams using Slack revealed reports of a 32% boost in team productivity. (HostSorter)
  • Online collaboration tools and digital workplaces facilitate increased productivity by up to 30%. (GOremotely)
  • 70% of workers say that they will spend more time on collaborative platforms in the future. (Deloitte)
  • 13.9% of workers define good team collaboration as being able to communicate easily with their colleagues. (Slack)
  • According to a survey of more than 753 business professionals, it was found that nearly 83% of professionals depend on technology to collaborate. 82% of the participants also felt that they would feel impacted if this technology to collaborate was lost. (Alfresco)
  • Knowledge workers spend an average of 14% of their workweek in communicating and collaborating internally. The study also showed that improving internal collaboration through social tools could help raise the productivity of interaction by as much as 20 to 25%. (McKinsey)

 

Statistics: Team Messaging Tools Make a Positive Work Environment

 

team messaging tools

Employees appreciate a positive and supportive work environment. Team messaging software can make that happen these days. The statistics below prove the benefits that these tools can have on employees’ mental and emotional well-being. 

 

  • 54% of employees say a strong sense of community kept them at a company longer than was in their best interest. (Gusto)
  • 80% of US employees feel stressed due to ineffective company communication.  (Dynamic Signal)
  • Companies and organizations that communicate effectively are 4.5x more likely to retain the best employees. (Bit.AI)
  • More than 80% of Americans say employee communication is key to developing trust with their employers. (Lexicon)
  • Businesses that have highly engaged employees are able to bring in 21% more profit than those that do not. (Rise People)
  • 85% of employees said they’re most motivated when management offers regular updates on company news. (Trade Press Services)
  • More informed employees outperform their peers by 77%. (everyonesocial)

 

The Team Messaging Tools Market

The value of team messaging tools has risen over the past few years. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, that worth has begun to skyrocket. The statistics below show the immense value of this software.

 

  • Investors put in $340 million USD for Slack’s creation. It had a $2.8 billion USD valuation from the outset. (HostSorter)
  • Gartner predicts the workstream collaboration market will reach $4.9 billion by 2021; by 2022, 70% of teams will rely primarily on workstream collaboration tools to get their work done every day. (Gartner)
  • The global team collaboration software market size is poised to reach USD 16.60 billion by 2025. (Global News Wire)
  • Revenue in the Collaboration Software segment is projected to reach USD 13,325.16 million in 2021. (Statista)
  • Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2021-2025) of 7.2%, resulting in a market volume of USD 17,566.09 million by 2025. (Statista)
  • In global comparison, most revenue will be generated in the United States (USD 6,676 million in 2021). (Statista)

 

The Most Popular Team Messaging Platforms

 

slack interface

Source: The Verge

 

Team messaging software may be a younger technology, but leaders in the field have quickly emerged. Slack and Microsoft Teams have found ways to set themselves apart from the pack. The following statistics will take a closer look at those tools, along with other leaders in the space. 

 

  • Slack has over 70% market share in the area of workstream collaboration platforms. (HostSorter)
  • Microsoft Teams grew by 894% in total from the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 to June 2020. (Aternity)
  • Cisco’s collaboration portfolio serves over 300 million people worldwide. (Cisco
  • The number of people using Slack daily exceeds 10 million. (TechJury)
  • 9 hours is the time period an average user of Slack is signed in for. (TechJury) 
  • Searches for Microsoft Teams increased by 379 percent between January and March 2020 (BusinessofApps)
  • Teams’ largest growth month was between May and April 2020, when it added 31 million users. (BusinessofApps)
  • Slack has over 70% market share in the area of workstream collaboration platforms. (HostSorter)
  • It also saw a 2.1 billion monthly rise in the number of meetings per day in March. (BusinessofApps)
  • We know of 12,273 live websites using Workplace by Facebook and an additional 401,137 sites that used Workplace by Facebook historically and 4,999 websites in the United States. (BuiltWith)
  • The revenue growth of Slack is higher than Twilio and below to Zoom. (Forbes)
  • Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed Microsoft Teams now has 115 million daily active users. That’s a more than 50 percent rise from the 75 million that Microsoft reported almost six months ago. (The Verge
  • In February of 2019, Workplace by Facebook released a formal statement stating that it now has more than 2 million paid users. (Workplace by Facebook)
  • In the healthcare industry, there were more than 34 million Teams meetings in April 2020. (Microsoft)
  • The total weekly active paid user base worldwide for Team Collaboration Software rose to just under 13 million user licenses at the end of 2017. (UC Today)
  • In terms of the volume of weekly active paid user licenses at the end of 2017, Microsoft was the clear worldwide leader, ahead of Slack in second place and Cisco in the third position. (MZA Consultants)
  • According to a 2019 Q4 Technology Executive Council Survey conducted by CNBC, 58% said their firms use Microsoft Teams, 30% said their firms use Slack. (HostSorter)
  • A study of US Teams users in 2020 found that 29.71% of companies used Microsoft Teams for remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. (HostSorter

 

Conclusion: Team Messaging Applications Have a Bright Future

If the COVID-19 crisis has taught us anything when it comes to collaboration, it’s that team messaging tools are here to stay. They offer an unprecedented amount of collaboration and productivity that is highly valuable in the new normal of somewhat permanent remote work. Statistics show that the market is seeing consistent growth, so we can expect that growth will carry over into the future. 

If you’re looking to further improve your team’s collaboration, take a look at our list of top team collaboration software.