Quick Answer
How many people use Excel in 2025?
There are somewhere between 1.1 and 1.5 billion people who use Excel.
Young people may know Microsoft Excel as the ‘grandfather’ of spreadsheets, but this bad boy has maintained its staple status among businesses since the early 1980s.
What’s the Excel user count in 2025?
What percentage of companies worldwide use this novel service?
Let’s find out!
Excel Users: How Many People Use Excel in 2025?
Somewhere between 1.1 and 1.5 billion people use Excel in 2023.
Microsoft’s spreadsheet master has maintained its dominance all these years, holding more than half of the 2 billion spreadsheet users to this day.
A market study in 2019 reveals 54% of all businesses globally use Excel, making it one of the biggest spreadsheet service providers in the business industry.
A Brief History of Excel
As the world digitized, businesses started looking for ways to leverage technology to optimize their operations.
Microsoft spotted a demand at a time enterprises wanted to manage and organize their data for easier classification.
In 1982, the tech juggernaut introduced Excel’s first-ever version called ‘Multiplan.’
But it was not until 1987 that the name ‘Excel’ came into circulation.
By 1993, Excel’s v5.0 hit the market as an automation tool for repetitive business tasks including but not limited to processing numerical information and business data presentation.
Excel’s Recent Developments
How many people use Excel today is a clear indication of its dominance over other apps.
However, Google Sheets’ introduction of easy online collaboration has challenged the status quo.
Here are some of the recent and important Microsoft Excel developments you should know about.
- Virtual access to Excel spreadsheets which was previously not available
- Interactive and dynamic PivotCharts
- Publish spreadsheets through Excel Services
- Leverage the macro programming language Visual Basic for Applications
Excel’s Functions
Meanwhile, Excel is a performer of many hats. So take a look at its most important functions for individual and organizational projects.
- Analysis of micro and macro business data
- Data entry and storage
- Visual reporting
- Accounting and budgeting
- Administrative task management
- Plotting schedules on calendars
- Business forecasts
According to research, Excel’s main patrons are big businesses and established organizations.
This is contrary to Google Sheets which has a stronger presence among younger people and young companies.
Worldwide Excel Users by Job Function
Excel is an indispensable part of many industries.
How many people use Excel in research? In accounting? Or in marketing?
Below is detailed data on the number of Excel users per job function in 2021.
- Research – this job function had 2.5 million Excel users during the year
- Accounting – this job function had 3.2 million Excel users during the year
- Project Management – this job function had 2.4 million Excel users during the year
- Finance – this job function had 3.9 million Excel users during the year
- Marketing – this job function had 2.7 million Excel users during the year
- Human Resources – this job function had 2.6 million Excel users during the year
- Consulting – this job function had 1.6 million Excel users during the year
- Information Technology – this job function had 5.3 million Excel users during the year
- Administrative – this job function had 4.6 million Excel users during the year
- Support – this job function had 3.1 million Excel users during the year
- Engineering – this job function had 5.8 million Excel users during the year
- Sales – this job function had 6.3 million Excel users during the year
- Business Development – this job function had 7.6 million Excel users during the year
- Education – this job function had 5.3 million Excel users during the year
- Entrepreneurship – this job function had 750,000 Excel users during the year
Percentage of Excel Users per Job Function
Meanwhile, here is another piece of information detailing the percentage of Excel users in each job function relative to the total.
- Research – 28.5% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Accounting – 28.3% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Project Management – 28.0% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Finance – 27.2% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Marketing – 26.2% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Human Resources – 25.2% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Consulting – 25.2% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Information Technology – 23.8% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Administrative – 21.6% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Support – 20.3% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Engineering – 19.8% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Sales – 17.9% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Business Development – 17.2% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Education – 17.0% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
- Entrepreneurship – 12.0% of all users in this job function are Excel users in 2021
Number of Excel Users by Country
How many people use Excel in the United States?
Here are the top Excel users for document management by country and their respective user statistics.
- United States – 71,049 users use Excel for document management in this country
- United Kingdom – 10,503 users use Excel for document management in this country
- Canada – 6,089 users use Excel for document management in this country
- Australia – 3,284 users use Excel for document management in this country
- India – 3,041 users use Excel for document management in this country
- Germany – 1,345 users use Excel for document management in this country
- Singapore – 987 users use Excel for document management in this country
Conclusion
Between 1.1 to 1.5 billion people use Excel for different functions in 2025.
This spreadsheet application maintains a dominant presence in many industries including Research, Information Technology, Accounting, and Project Management.
Since its launch in 1982, Excel has helped optimize business operations through micro and macro data analysis and similar functions.
Thanks for reading this article on Excel’s monthly active users in 2025.
