Skype users now spend 2bn minutes connecting with each other every day

Two-billion minutes. It’s a long time. More than 3 800 years. It’s also apparently the amount of time Skype users spend connecting with each other every day.

Skype made the announcement in an official blog post today, which deals mostly with what two-billion minutes is equivalent to (it’s enough time to watch 1.6-million movies apparently).

If you’re thinking that the figure must mean everyone else out there must spending a lot more time on video chat than you, it’s worth bearing in mind that those two-billion minutes include those making voice or video calls as well anyone sending instant messages, sharing files or leaving video call messages.

It’s likely that Skype’s numbers were given a significant boost by Microsoft’s decision to kill Live Messenger a couple of months ago.

Skype has released an infographic to commemorate the occasion.

2 billion minutes infographic by Skype

The VoIP service has grown massively since its 2003 inception. It took it until 2004 to reach one-billion minutes of connection in total. As recently as mid 2011 meanwhile it has 300-million minutes of connection going through it.

In that time though, it’s also gone from being a purely desktop-based platform to one available on PCs, iPhones, iPads, Kindle Fires, Androids, Macs, Windows Phones and TVs.