Quarter of US adults use Internet phone calls: Pew report

Microsof’t’s acquisition of the $8.5-billion worth Skype and heading to stitch it up to its other products like smartphones, sees great potential in American internet phone calling market.

Online telephone calls have taken a huge leap in the past couple of years in America, according to a survey.

In its latest survey report, Pew Internet said a quarter of America’s adult internet users have placed phone calls online.

On a given day, 5 percent of the Web users are making phone calls using services like Skype, Vonage and Google Voice, the report said. Facebook too is all set to take off with its voice chat soon.

In 2007, Pew reported that 8 percent of the internet users had placed calls online and 2 percent of them were making calls in any given day.

In terms of demographics it’s seen that the highest percentage of internet call users are between the age group of 18 and 29 years of age.