Telegram surpasses the 1 billion user milestone on Google Play Store

One billion people have downloaded Telegram from the Google Play Store, making it the most widely used chat app on both desktop and mobile platforms. WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging software, will be concerned by the recent increase in Telegram downloads. As of 2021, the service has witnessed significant growth, notably after WhatsApp implemented new privacy-related terms of service earlier this year and when Facebook’s services went down for many hours last week.

Even while Telegram isn’t as popular in India as WhatsApp, young people prefer it, especially those who play games like Battlegrounds Mobile India or who want to share study materials and other resources. According to Statista, in March and April of 2021, the service had 32 million and 26 million instals worldwide.

There have been one billion downloads of Telegram’s cross-platform messaging software, making it a new milestone for the programme that works on most desktop and mobile platforms. WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging software, will be concerned by the recent increase in Telegram downloads. Especially after WhatsApp adopted new privacy-related terms of service earlier this year and after Facebook’s services experienced an extended outage for hours a few weeks ago, the service has seen significant growth in 2021

Even while Telegram isn’t as popular in India as WhatsApp, young people prefer it, especially those who play games like Battlegrounds Mobile India or who want to share study materials and other resources. According to Statista, in March and April of 2021, the service had 32 million and 26 million instals worldwide.

Telegram’s user base grew by 70 million as a result of the recent Facebook outage, which affected Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook for almost six hours, according to the platform’s founder Pavel Durov. As with WhatsApp’s decision to provide updated terms of service (which allowed the company to disclose additional data when users interacted with businesses), Telegram’s userbase grew as a result of uncertainty and alarm.

With roughly 500 million active users, Telegram is looking for ways to stay afloat and avoid being swallowed up by larger corporations like Facebook and Google. To put it another way, there is no cost to using Telegram. Earlier this year, the company’s creator said that it was working on a way to monetise the app through small sponsored messages sent in public and one-to-many channels. These advertisements were supposed to begin appearing in channels in 2021, however, as of yet, they haven’t aired on any of them.

The service will remain free in its current form, but certain features may be made available to paying customers in the future — essentially a premium tier — and that the company was also planning on working with artists to sell premium stickers on the app as an additional revenue source. Meanwhile, Durov explained in 2020 that the service will remain free in its current form in the future. It’ll be interesting to see if Telegram can take on the current market leader, WhatsApp, with its two billion active users without resorting to in-app purchases or advertising.