Launch of Gmail VoIP feature results in 1 million calls on first day

On Thursday, Google released its voice-over-internet-protocol feature for Gmail users, who proceeded to make more than 1 million phone calls in the first 24 hours.

Currently, only users in the United States and Canada have access to the service, which features free calls to either country as well as cheap international rates. According to Google, it is using the revenue it will collect from international calls, which cost close to 2 cents per minute, to keep the local calls free.

The feature is not available to all Gmail users in the U.S. and Canada just yet, and it is unknown when Google will reach complete availability. The staggered rollout, however, is not uncommon for Google. With its social networking tool, Wave, the company provided invites to some Gmail users to test the program in beta before making it available to all users.

Some have speculated that Google is attempting to dethrone Skype as the VoIP leader, however, others think the company simply wants to provide its users with complete communication services and compete with popular social media websites.

“We assume Google’s ulterior motive is less about disrupting the telecommunications and more about driving engagement within Gmail and its social-networking activities, to better compete with social networks such as Facebook,” Goldman Sachs analyst James Mitchel told investors.

To compete with Facebook, Google must lure customers with these features. According to its most recently released statistics, Facebook has surpassed 500 million total users worldwide.