According to official figures from ComScore in December 2009, Gmail has 176 million users worldwide and counting. Google very smartly decided to make use of the huge dedicated customer base and launched Google Call Phone service 2 days ago which integrates the Google Voice calling technology with Gmail and turns users’ inboxes in to a phone line. It was a brilliant move on Google’s part, as proved within 24 hours of the launch.
Google’s official Twitter page announced that 1 million calls were made in the first 24 hours of the service launch and the number is continuing to grow fast. Even more interesting is the fact that the feature is already activated internationally and users around the world now see the “Call Phone” option in their chat menu. This is of course going to add to the number of calls massively.
The best part of the Gmail phone service is no doubt the free calls to US and Canada and modest rates for most of other countries. Google is obviously trying to counter the popularity of Skype which is a widely used free service around the world. It would’ve been difficult to achieve that if Google had created a completely new separate service. Providing it via Gmail was the right strategy to adopt as users are more likely to use a new feature in their existing email or social media accounts rather than checking out a completely new domain.
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