Dive Brief:

• Slack’s phenomenal rate of growth appears to be slowing slightly, according to TechCrunch.

• The messaging platform is currently growing by about 33% in daily users, compared to previous growth rates of 50% daily users in the first half of 2016.

• Some big companies say the platform is difficult to scale on a massive basis. Uber, for example, abandoned Slack in April.

Dive Insight:

The pace may have slowed, but the company is still going strong. According to a company blog post, Slack now has 4 million daily active users, 5.8 million weekly active users, over 1.25 million paid users, and 33,000 paid teams.

The blog post also says the company now has over 1 million paid seats and $100,000,000 in annual recurring revenue.

But some large companies have said the platform is difficult to scale. And, Slack will soon face additional competition. Microsoft’s new app, Skype Teams, will directly compete with Slack. Skype Teams is expected to include several features similar to Slack, as well as additional features like threaded conversations. Skype Teams will also reportedly enable Office 365 integration. A beta version is expected in November.