New record of 100 crore downloads of Whatsapp’s competitor Telegram!

Telegram has crossed the one billion download mark globally. According to a report, Telegram has become the latest app to cross the figure of one billion downloads globally. The instant messaging app which has been in existence since 2013 competes with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Amidst the anger among people regarding the recent privacy policy update of WhatsApp, it was successful in increasing its presence in the market. Telegram also introduced new features including group video calls, screen sharing with audio, and an updated voice chat experience, which helped attract new users.

TechCrunch cited data from Sensor Tower. told That Telegram crossed one billion downloads worldwide last week. Other apps on this list include Telegram’s arch-rival WhatsApp as well as Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify, and Netflix.

Sensor Tower reported that India emerged as the largest internet market for Telegram. After Telegram came into existence, 22 percent of its downloads have been done in India alone. After India, Russia and Indonesia were the two major markets for the app, from where it received 10 percent and eight percent of its total installs, respectively. It’s important to note that the number of installs reported by Sensor Tower does not reflect the app’s active users. However, Telegram said last year that it had about 500 million monthly active users.

Earlier this month, business journal Nikkei Asia reported, citing data from analytics platform App Annie, that Telegram became the seventh most downloaded app globally in 2020. Tech News by Careers Ready has reached out to Telegram for comment on the download achievement and will update this story once the company responds.

One of the major reasons behind the growing success of Telegram in the last few months is the negative sentiment of users towards WhatsApp. This reached new levels with the introduction of a privacy policy update that the Facebook-owned platform announced in early 2021 to attract businesses and help the parent company’s subsidiaries.

Telegram was successful in adding millions of new users amid the privacy policy issue of WhatsApp along with its rival Signal. In the three days since WhatsApp announced its privacy policy update, founder Pavel Durov announced that Telegram has added 25 million new users. It also became the most downloaded app globally in January, according to an earlier Sensor Tower report.

Overcoming the privacy policy issue created by WhatsApp, Telegram introduced new features including updated voice chat that works like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. Also introduced video calls that can connect 1000 viewers at a time. It also received an investment of Rs 150 million (about Rs 10,96.38 crore) from Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investments and Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners in March.