Skype To Launch Free Group Video Calling For Mobile Devices

Not many may realize this, but Skype, one of the most popular chat messaging platforms existing in the world today, is actually not a decade old. To celebrate its birthday, the company has revealed that it will be offering group video calling on mobile devices powered by Android, iOS, and even Windows 10 for Mobile, absolutely free of charge.

The group video calling feature has actually been made available on personal computers for about two years now, but Skype’s latest announcement marks the first time that this capability has been brought to smartphones and tablet devices. The company is planning to deploy the feature to hundreds of millions of mobile users in the next few weeks. And even though Skype has not revealed any specific date for the roll out, it did however offer interested people the opportunity to sign up for early access to the group video calling feature by registering online. 

Upon registration, interest first adopters will be asked to provide their email address, Skype username, country, and type of mobile device. As soon as the registration process is complete, Skype will be sending an email notification after it has successfully set up support for the group video calling feature on the customer’s handset. It is not clear yet if this will be done via beta software that needs to be downloaded and installed by the mobile user, or through an in-app process.

Apart from announcing the upcoming launch of its group video calling feature for mobile devices, Skype also made the most of the occasion to boast the company’s accomplishments in the last ten years, specifically noting that the messaging service is now being used by more than 750 million mobile users in the planet. Skype also highlighted the fact that it has grown ten fold in less than a couple of years, due to the continuing popularity of the app as a communications tool for mobile devices. As a matter of fact, over the last decade, Skype has hosted almost a couple of trillion minutes of free Skype calls around the world.

Aside from adding support for group video calling on both desktop and mobile, Skype has also managed to introduce other features over the last few years, including video messaging, real time speech and instant message translation, and even its own emoji library, among many others. The service also now allows people to join in chats, even if they don’t use Skype. Lastly, Skype for Business has fully replaced Lync as Microsoft’s new communications tool.