The well-known instant messaging program Telegram has joined the exclusive club of applications downloaded more than 1 billion times worldwide, claims Sensor Tower.
According to the mobile analytics company, the app, founded in late 2013 and has its headquarters in Dubai, surpassed the milestone on Friday. India is both Telegram’s and its major rival WhatsApp’s largest market. According to Sensor Tower, the world’s second-largest internet market is responsible for almost 22% of lifetime install.
“Russia and Indonesia follow India, accounting for around 10% and 8% of [all installs] respectively. Installs of the app increased dramatically in 2021, reaching 214.7 million in the first half of the year, up 61 percent annually from 133 million in H1 2020,” it said.
It’s crucial to understand that the number of installations and the number of active users are not the same. Early this year, there were about 500 million monthly users of Telegram. However, the rise in downloads suggests that Telegram has recently received more attention, which is consistent with WhatsApp’s poor management of notifying its large user base about its privacy regulations.
According to Sensor Tower, Telegram, which funded over $1 billion earlier this year, is the fifteenth app worldwide to have had 1 billion or more downloads. According to Sensor Tower, other applications on the list include WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify, and Netflix.
63.5 million downloads of Telegram were made in January, a 283 percent YoY increase from 16.6 million. Since that initial surge, the app’s downloads have fallen month over month. With 26.2 million installations in April compared to nearly 27 million in April last year, the app’s download suffered a 3% YoY decline. The business raised more than $1 billion earlier this year from worldwide investors.
