I think the better information we have that demonstrates that EVE doesn’t really have a problem attracting new people to the game is the Gamebeat interview with Helmar in 2021 (at the bottom).
1.3 million new players in 2020, or an average 25,000 new player registrations per week.
However, given the potential for covid inflation, we also have information from EVE North 2019 where CCP outlined that there were about 21,000 new player registrations each week and about 10,000 that actually login for the first time each week:
That was also stated in Helmar’s 2019 AMA here that:
Continuing the discussion from [CONCLUDED] 2019/03/28 - Live AMA With CCP Hellmar!:
Helmar described the player base as a river at one point. It’s constantly flowing and it’s up to CCP to provide enough content to increase the base that sticks around.
Nothing we are doing as a player base is as bad for retention as things CCP do or don’t do. 90% gone within the first 7 days each week. This isn’t a player group that is being ganked out of the game.