Dive Brief:

• Monday, at the Forbes CIO summit in California, Dropbox announced it now has 500 million users globally.
• Last June, the eight-year-old file hosting company had 400 million users. Of those, about 75% are from outside the United States, according to ZDNet. 
• Dropbox also said 8 million of its users are businesses, though only about 150,000 of those are paying customers. 

Dive Insight:

Organizations have demanded new and better ways for employees to collaborate in recent years, and tech companies–both new and old–are responding with updated products and features that allow for more workplace flexibility.

But analysts have said Dropbox will likely need more paying businesses in order to maintain profitability. Right now the company is adding about 25,000 new business each quarter, but it did not say whether or not they pay. 

With the sharply decreased valuation of its cloud storage rival Box, some are looking at Dropbox with skepticism. But, the company has said its hybrid model, with both consumers and business customers, will help it remain successful. 

Dropbox also said the 3.3 billion connections have been made on its platform in the past 12 months, a 50% increase over the same period last year. The service also spreads virally, with about 44% of new users coming through another user.