I don't think anyone, not even the devs of xim truly know how many active users there are out there. the xim devs for example know how many they have sold. and they know how many of these devices are compatible with current Gen systems. but there are other companies including Sony who make their own devices that provide the same emulated control method.
I do however feel comfortable saying the rate of use is higher than 5% to 7%. it may very well be 5 to7 over all, but as I'm sure you know, it's all about current active use. I definitely feel comfortable saying the rate of active use has only ever increased. the rate of use per game is going to vary wildly. in pubg for example, the use of xim is going to be low. the use of xim in Rainbow 6 Siege is going to be extremely high. the use of xim in CS:GO is ZERO..
Again, I don't know actual numbers but I will tell you the man who created xim, when asked about the launch of xim in its first few days, he didn't give numbers, but he did imply several hundred thousand for just the frist couple of weeks. for a few months there they sold out of the xim Apex on days their online store was open in less than ~30 minutes. you could only get one if you were paying attention to the forums for the time they decided to open the online store. some people even reported the store closing in as fast as 10 minutes. to be clear, when I say "sold out" I don't mean they didn't have any more units. they just closed the store when they had sold enough to max out their shipping capacity, they didn't want someone to order one and not receive it within a reasonable time. on top of the sheer confidence they would not lose out to any other competitor just for not accepting everyone's order all at once. I believe their target was two weeks max wait time if I recall correctly.
I dont even know about the other companies who make MnK emulators, they can't be doing too bad either.
