Skype's new milestone: users spend more than 2 billion minutes per day - data infographic

Skype announced that its users spend 2 billion minutes per day on its cross-platform calling and texting services. This is a huge number, which has grown rapidly due to Microsoft's upcoming move to shut down MSN and Skype's diverse mobile and PC applications. 2 billion minutes would sound terrible if it were all video calls, but we should realize that this number represents all communication methods on Skype, that is, text messages, video voicemails, audio calls and video calls.

Still, the milestone means that Skype is still very much a household name when people talk about video calls. In fact, in recent years, the service has become synonymous with calling someone. For example, when people want to say I'll call you at 7, they'll say, I'll Skype you at 7. This is similar to the way Google is used to refer to a search.

Skype also released an infographic explaining what the 2 billion minute milestone means. 2 billion minutes a day means 33 million hours of laughter, 1.39 million days of collaboration, 3,805 years of sharing smiles, enough for us to circle the earth more than 845 times, travel to Mars more than 5,400 times, and watch more than 16 million movies.