Facebook announced today that it is letting anyone make group voice calls within its Messenger app. It appears that this capability is rolling out over the next 24 hours, so if you don’t have it yet, make sure you have the latest app update.
For those that do have this feature, when you’re in Messenger, tap the phone icon to initiate a group call. The next screen will allow you to manage the people you want to have participate in the call. As of this time, it doesn’t appear that you can have multiple people participate in video chats, so you’ll still need to use Google Hangouts or Skype. But it’s probably only a matter of time before Facebook makes it possible, since it’s something the 900 million monthly active users of Messenger will likely desire.
Group calling within a messenger platform isn’t unique to Facebook though, as others have had this feature for a while. In March, Line rolled out group calling that supports up to 200 people and in September, China-based WeChat added support for this as well, along with group video calling.
Facebook hasn’t specified how many people you can have on a group voice call.
We’ve reached out to Facebook for additional details and will update if we hear back.