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Discord attracted 50m new users in first three months of 2019

Discord attracted 50m new users in first three months of 2019

Games-focused communication app Discord now boasts over 250m users, as of March 2019, meaning that 50m new people have signed up to the platform since the end of 2018.

The company revealed these new stats to celebrate its fourth anniversary, also revealing that it has 56m monthly active users. Over 850m messages are sent on average every single day, a figure that rises to 25bn per month.

To the surprise of no-one, Fortnite is one of the Top 7 most popular official servers, alongside SpellBreak, PUBG Mobile, Clash Royale, Minecraft, Zombs Royale and Rainbow Six.

Discord launched in May 2015, going on to attract three million users by the end of the year. By July 2016, the platform boasted 11m users, a figure that had more-than-doubled to 25m at the end of that year. In May 2017, Discord said it had 45m users, hitting 87m by December 2017.

The firm attracted three million users in two months, reporting a 90m registered accounts in February 2018. An extra 40m people had signed up by the time the platform's third birthday rolled around in May of that year, with 130m users reported. In August, Discord had 150m users and in December 2018, that had risen to 200m.

That last figure was announced alongside a new round of funding, with Discord raising $150m at a $2bn valuation. In the past the company has attracted investment from the likes of Tencent and WarnerMedia.

PCGamesInsider.biz caught up with CEO Jason Citron at GDC 2018 to discuss the company's huge growth.

The firm has tried to branch out from its core communication business, launching a storefront in 2018. Initially, this had a 30/70 revenue share - in line with Steam - but the company reduced this to 90/10 after Epic Games rolled out its storefront with an 88/12 offering

In March, Discord quietly shut its storefront, instead letting developers sell directly to consumers. 


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.