Facebook Messenger now has 300 million voice and video callers

Facebook has revealed that it now has over 300 million monthly active users of video and voice calling within its Messenger app, a growing sign of the service’s growing integration in our daily lives. David Marcus, Facebook’s vice president for messaging products, called it “one of the biggest real-time communication apps” right now.

Appearing at TechCrunch Disrupt, Marcus touted the growth of Messenger saying that Facebook has plans to continue to “invest more and more in real-time communication.” The news of this comes just months after Messenger hit 1 billion monthly active users, and it highlights the capabilities of the app, which powers 10 percent of all Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls worldwide.

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Marcus said Facebook is always looking at “what are the fundamental things people want to do when they talk to one another. We need to make sure we build the right experiences so people use the product and find the right utility in the product.”

Voice and video calling isn’t a new thing that the social networking company invented; others, like Skype, Google, and Tokbox, have been at the forefront of this endeavor. However, Facebook has tapped into the network effect of its product to help better connect its billions of users. The company brought voice calls to iOS devices in 2013 and group calling three years later.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has waded into the VoIP issue by saying that as more people use Messenger and the company’s $19.6 billion WhatsApp, the company will invest more into improving call quality, believing that voice calling is catching on among users.

“As part of this journey to 1 billion, we focused on creating the best possible experiences in modern day communications,” Marcus said earlier this year. “We remain focused on helping connect people to the people and businesses who matter most.”