Amazon’s recent decision to discontinue its Chime collaboration app in favor of focusing on the more successful Chime software development kit (SDK) highlights the company’s strategic focus on its strengths. The company has always been known for its ability to pivot when necessary, recognizing when a product isn’t living up to expectations and choosing to double down on what works. In this case, while the Chime app was once seen as a promising tool for communication and collaboration, it became clear over time that its capabilities couldn’t keep up with rivals in a rapidly changing market.
When Amazon launched Chime in February 2017, it seemed to make sense as a competitor to the likes of Microsoft Teams and Zoom, which were starting to dominate the enterprise communication space. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, these platforms quickly expanded their features to meet the increasing demand for virtual collaboration tools, while Amazon struggled to keep pace with meaningful updates. As competitors like Microsoft and Zoom added new functionalities, Chime remained stagnant, leading to its gradual decline in market share. Now, Chime’s share is so small it is effectively negligible, with some sources even estimating it at 0.0%.
Amazon itself acknowledged Chime’s limited market presence, pointing to its competitors as the driving force behind the shift. The company’s media relations team explained that the decision to retire Chime was motivated by the recognition that its partners, such as Zoom and Microsoft, offered solutions that better fit both Amazon’s customers and employees. Internally, Amazon made it clear that Zoom would be replacing Chime as the standard meeting tool for its own staff, with Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex filling in for more specific needs. This move signals Amazon’s willingness to embrace the dominance of its competitors in this space rather than attempt to reinvent the wheel.
While the Chime app faltered, the Chime SDK has continued to thrive, demonstrating a completely different story. Unlike the app, the SDK’s lack of a full feature set wasn’t a drawback; instead, enterprises and third-party developers leveraged it as a foundation to create custom communication solutions within their own products. This approach allowed companies like Slack and Intuit to integrate Chime’s capabilities into their platforms, driving the SDK’s adoption. Amazon’s early entry into the SDK market gave it a head start over competitors like Microsoft and Zoom, allowing it to capture a significant share. Analysts, such as Melody Brue of Moor Insights & Strategy, noted that the success of the SDK was unsurprising given that Amazon had invested more in this area than in the app, which made it more aligned with the needs of developers and businesses.