Telegram adds more than 25 million new users in 3 days

Telegram currently has now over 500 million active users. In the last 72 hours alone, over 25 million individuals joined Telegram. 38% of the new customers came from Asia, 27% from Europe, 21% from Latin America and 8% from the Middle East and North America.

Telegram founder Durov said that, “We so far have privately financed the seven-year-old company, but at the same time we are looking for the ways to commercialise the instant messaging service as the startup grows. In order to make progress, a project of our size needs at least a few hundred million dollars a year”.

The user boost comes after rival WhatsApp experienced a widespread backlash following a revised privacy policy in which users would have to allow WhatsApp data, such as phone numbers and addresses, which will be obtained by the Facebook and its subsidiaries before February 8th or  you might lose access to the app. Since then, the firm has explained that the move would not compromise the privacy of friend and family communications.

Telegram surpassed 500 million active users. 25 million new users joined in the last 72 hours: 38% came from Asia, 27% from Europe, 21% from Latin America and 8% from MENA. https://t.co/1LptHZb9PQ

— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) January 12, 2021

Given the almost meteoric growth of Telegram’s user base, it nevertheless pales in comparison to WhatsApp, which is projected to account as much as 2 billion users worldwide. It’ll be fascinating to see exactly how much these recent regulatory updates will influence the user base of WhatsApp. Lets be realistic, a good chunk of users and companies will still continue to use Whatsapp, it will not make a big difference.