Dive Brief:

• Workplace by Facebook has accumulated more than two million paying monthly users since launching in October 2016, according to a company announcement this week. 
• More than 150 companies have 10,000 users or more on the platform, according to the announcement. In the last year, the company has added high-profile customers including AstraZeneca, Delta Air Lines, Vodafone and Nestlé. 
• Facebook promoted Karandeep Anand, its former director of product management for Facebook Marketplace and Payments, to head of the communication platform in December. In October, the company also split Workplace by Facebook away from its main site to a new domain in order to appease enterprise security concerns, according to a CNBC report. 

Dive Insight:

Companies are clawing for a piece of the communication platform market, which is expected to be worth almost $50 billion by 2021. Facebook is up against Slack and Microsoft Teams, which are currently dominating the market. 

By last March, Microsoft Teams racked up 200,000 organizations in its customer base after its first year on the market. By October, that total had climbed to 329,000, putting the company on the fast track to own the collaboration market by next year. 

Slack is expected to IPO later this year, perhaps as early as Q2. Some reports have indicated the company is mulling a direct listing option, though experts are unsure if the company has enough brand recognition to pull off the alternative path to the stock exchange that Spotify elevated into the spotlight last year. 

Workplace may be a distant third to Slack and Microsoft teams, but the enterprise offering is steadily turning into a reliable profit stream for the social network company. 

Workplace offers a free standard option with communication and productivity features. Businesses that want premium, with administrative support and enterprise features such as administrative controls, APIs, integrations with other providers and suites, and IT monitoring tools, can pay $3 per user per month. 

The 2 million customers number the company touted this week does not include nonpaying customers. In addition to its free offering, Workplace provides its premium tier for free to nonprofits and education staff.