Pioneering internet calling service Skype officially shut down on May 5, 2025, after nearly 22 years in operation, according to Microsoft. The company is shifting focus to promoting its Teams application instead.

The service was originally launched in August 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis, and four other Estonian developers, offering users the ability to make free or low-cost voice and video calls over the internet. The program’s name was derived from “sky peer-to-peer” – how the developers described its functionality.

It soon became a global phenomenon, allowing both Skype-to-Skype calls and calls to traditional landlines and mobile phones. At its peak, Skype had more than 300 million monthly users in the mid-2010s and was widely regarded as a pioneer in internet-based communication.

Skype changed hands several times over the years before being acquired by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion. The company has since gradually shifted resources toward its Teams platform, which is now being positioned as its primary product for business and personal communications.

The rise of competing services such as Zoom, WhatsApp, FaceTime, and Google Meet ultimately contributed to Skype’s declining popularity in recent years. In late February 2025, Microsoft announced that it would shut down Skype and urged users to transition to Teams, allowing them to keep their old contacts and chat history. The company said that the data will be available to transfer until January 2026, after which it will be permanently deleted.

Despite its decline, many users have shared tributes to Skype on social media, calling its shutting down “the end of an era” and reminiscing on how it was one of the first programs they used to stay in touch with friends, loved ones, and colleagues.