Evernote crosses the 100 million user mark

Note taking suite provider has its largest number of users in the Asia Pacific region

Note taking and archiving company Evernote has reached a user new milestone: the company has reached over 100 million users, across its numerous app, for the first time.

Given that the company had 80 million subscribers as of December 2013, meaning it has increased its userbase by 20% in just six months. 

The core Evernote app has by far the largest number of users, it was revealed on Tuesday, with 127 million users, while Skitch, its screenshot editing and sharing utilit, which it bought in 2011, has 16 million. Penultimate, its digital handwriting service, has 10 million and its other apps, including Web Clipper, Food and reading app Clearly, has 13 million.

With 65 million users overlapping, that comes out to 101 million total users. It should be noted, though, that seem to be total users, and not total active users, which is typically the measurement by which companies report their numbers.

"There are two ways to look at this. On the one hand, there are more than 100 million people whose lives have been touched, even a little bit, by something we made," Evernote CEO Phil Libin wrote in a blog post. "On the other hand, there are still about 7 billion people who’ve never used any Evernote product."

The company also broke down where people were using the app. Over a third, 35 million, of its users come from the Asia-Pacific region. The company has definitely been making moves in that part of the world, teaming up with Honda, as well the Japanese mobile carrier Docomo, to launch the Evernote Accelerator in April of last year. 

Another 31 million users come from Africa, the Middle East and Europe combined, while 27 million come from the U.S. and Canada and another 8 come from Latin America. 

The best news of all for Evernote though, is how much of their initial customers were able to find out about the company without ever having seen an advertisement. 

In total 88 million of them found the app via direct download, while the other 13 were referred by partners.

"We’ve spent very little money on promoting our products, in fact our total spend on advertising to date comes out to less than 1 cent per user," Libin said.

There is one interesting question that was not addressed in the announcement though: given that Evernote follows a freemium model, where users try out the basic product for free, and then are asked to upgrade to the premium service, just how many of those 100 million are paying customers?

Overall, the company has been pretty good at converting free users to paying ones. 

While only some 0.5% of first-time users jump straight to the premium product, that number goes up to 7% after one year of use, after two years, that number climbs to 11%. Of those using the product the longest—four or five years—a full 25% are likely to become paying users.

Founded in 2008, Evernote has raised $251 million to date. The company is one of many potential IPO candidates for the next few years.

(Image source: blog.evernote.com)