Telegram isn’t going away anytime soon. The controversial messaging app is now one of the biggest.

A year after it made headlines, Telegram has reached a major milestone: one billion downloads. It took eight years for the platform to achieve the feat.

The encrypted messaging app surpassed one billion downloads worldwide on Friday, Aug 27, according to Sensor Tower. Telegram thus becomes the 15th app in the world to have been downloaded a billion times or more. Its competitor WhatsApp is already on the list alongside Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify and Netflix.

So where is Telegram used the most? According to information reported by TechCrunch, India is the main market for the messaging app, as is also the case for WhatsApp. This market accounts for 22% of the app’s downloads.

Russia and Indonesia follow in second and third place as the countries where Telegram is most downloaded with 10% and 8% of all installs, respectively, TechCrunch revealed.

“The app’s installs accelerated in 2021, reaching about 214.7 million installs in the first half of 2021, up 61% year-over-year from 133 million in the first half of 2020,” said Sensor Tower via TechCrunch.

Launched in 2013, the Dubai-based app created by two Russian entrepreneurs has 500 million monthly active users. Telegram was able to take advantage of the bad buzz that hit WhatsApp in relation to its new privacy policy criticised by users.

Many Internet users decided to turn to Telegram and Signal to communicate without having to go through the Facebook-owned application. Since then, Telegram has unveiled new features to stay in the race, including multi-party video calls.

 - AFP Relaxnews