Telegram’s UK entity, Telegram Messenger LLP, reported that it had £2.2 million ($3 million) in cash at the end of February 2015.ĭurov has said he’ll figure out a model eventually. By early 2020, the service had over 500 million users and they continue to grow. Telegram is the Berlin-based competitor to Facebooks WhatsApp. Durov started a social network, VKontakte, in 2006, when Russia still appeared to have a future as a haven for web freedom. But not long ago, he was seen as Russias Mark Zuckerberg. Around the middle of 2020, Telegram had about 200 million users. Pavel Durov is the elusive founder behind Telegram, an app thats found itself at the center of the contentious encryption debate. Heres more on Telegrams founder, Pavel Durov Durov, the founder of Telegram, is in exile.
It has really grown in popularity over the past year with people migrating from WhatsApp due to privacy concerns. Durov told Fortune that he spends $1 million of his own funds a month to keep Telegram, with its technical staff of 15, running. Telegram is the hot product in the secure messenger space. Telegram also has a feature called Secret Chat for messages that can’t be forwarded, automatically delete themselves, and are protected by extra encryption. These privacy features meant Telegram became popular with ISIS as a propaganda channel and communication tool, and was apparently used to plot the Paris attacks of November 2015. Telegram deleted dozens of ISIS related channels in the week after the attacks, according to Fortune.įor now, Telegram has no revenues, no profits and no business model. Until public channels were introduced in the last year, there was also no way to find a group chat without an invitation. The messenger can be used both via mobile and desktop. Telegram Messenger LLP is based in London. All video calls are secured with end-to-end encryption and support picture-in-picture mode, so users can search and send messages without closing the call. He had previously founded the Russian equivalent of Facebook, VKontakte. In celebration of Telegram’s 7th Anniversary and its status as one of the world's top 10 apps, the first version of Video Calls was launched for Telegram’s mobile and desktop platforms. There’s no way to search for users if they don’t create a public username for themselves. Conclusion about the potential of Telegram. Users have the option of only being identified by a phone number, which means a user can only be added to another user’s contact list if that phone number has been shared. This privacy centered approach is evident in Telegram’s user interface.