Video Calling Feature On Facebook Messenger Now Available Globally

Facebook, the world’s biggest social network on Tuesday made the announcement that the free video calling feature on its Messenger app will now be available to all users across the globe. The social network made the first announcement of the new feature at the end of April and only availed to users across selected 18 countries globally.

David Marcus, the Vice President of Messaging Product at Facebook wrote the following announcement in a  Facebook post:

However, Marcus did not reveal the specific (few) countries that are yet to get this feature enabled. As a user, I guess you will have to find out for yourself by updating your Facebook app on your Android or iOS device. In order to find out whether or not your country is among the few countries that are yet to get the update. For users that will be able to update their app successfully, you should see a video icon located at the top right corner of your chat screen.

This new update now puts Facebook’s Messenger into direct competition with the already established free video calling apps like Microsoft’s Skype, Google’s Hangout, and Apple’s FaceTime.

Facebook is touting the Messenger app to have even more useful features for the users. Including the ability to send money to friends and voice transcription feature that will give users the ability to send voice clips that will automatically type out as text by the app. There are also rumors that the app will soon enable users to play games within the app itself.

The first countries in the world to try out the new free video calling feature were: Uruguay, United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Poland, Oman, Norway, Nigeria, Mexico, Lithuania, Laos, Ireland, Greece, France, Denmark, Croatia, Canada, and Belgium.