As of March 2025, cloud-based mobile messaging app Telegram reported over *********** monthly active users worldwide. Telegram is a chat app launched in 2013 by the brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov. The pair had previously founded the Russian social network VK, which they left when it was taken over by the Mail.ru Group. Telegram In 2023, the majority of Telegram’s global audience, was comprised of users aged between 25 and 34 years. Among the reasons to use Telegram, ** percent of the platform’s users reported to learn the majority of the news from Telegram. After the announcement that WhatsApp was going to release a new privacy policy update was met with criticism in 2021, Telegram's audience and popularity spiked, bringing global downloads to *** million. Telegram security criticism Despite claiming to be more secure than other mainstream messengers such as Line or WhatsApp, Telegram has been frequently criticized by industry experts such as German consumer organization Stiftung Warentest or the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). One of the key points of criticism is Telegram’s failure to provide automatic end-to-end encryption (WhatsApp and LINE messenger have end-to-end encryption set up by default).

India was the leading market of Telegram by app downloads. Throughout 2024, Indian users installed the messaging app approximately 100 million times. Russia ranked second, with over **** million downloads over the observed period, while U.S. users installed the app **** million times. Brazil recorded the largest number of downloads among Latin American countries. France and Germany were the leading markets in Western Europe. Telegram usage in India Telegram had the fourth-highest penetration rate among social media platforms in India, following WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. In the third quarter of 2023, more than ** percent of Indian active social media users reported having used Telegram over the past month. However, user engagement on Telegram in India was significantly lower than on other major networks. On average, Indian users spent *** hours per month on the platform in 2021, which was ** times shorter than on WhatsApp. Growing popularity of Telegram As of July 2024, Telegram had *** million active users around the globe, having multiplied its audience tenfold since December 2014. Telegram recorded a sharp increase in global downloads in the first quarter of 2021, when WhatsApp, its competitor owned by Meta, updated its privacy policy. In March 2022, Telegram further increased its popularity in Russia after Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram were banned in the country. The number of daily active users (DAU) of Telegram nationwide grew by ** percent between January and March 2022.

As of January 2025, monthly active users of Telegram accounted for over ** percent of the global population, marking an increase from the previous year. In total, *** million people used Telegram on average per month.

During the fourth quarter of 2024, mobile messaging market leader WhatsApp reported around 1.13 million downloads from users in the United Kingdom. By comparison, Telegram reported around 1.22 million app downloads during the same period, while instant messaging platform Signal reported approximately 388 thousand app downloads by UK users. Between 2020 and the end of 2023, WhatsApp has consistently amassed more app downloads than competitors Telegram and Signal, but Telegram gained ground among UK users in 2024, with almost two million downloads during the second quarter of the year, compared to the 1.11 million downloads recorded by WhatsApp during the same period.

The messenger app Telegram had ** million paying users around the world as of December 2024, seven million more than in January of that year. Telegram introduced a freemium model with paid subscriptions in June 2022.

The largest share of Telegram users as of 2023 were employed in the IT and Internet sector, at about ** percent. Users of the messaging app with occupation in the production industry accounted for over seven percent of the user base.

Nearly one-third of Telegram users in Russia were Moscow residents, as of 2023. Saint Petersburg accounted for the second-largest share of the instant messaging app users in the country, reaching about **** percent.

During the third quarter of 2024, Telegram was downloaded approximately 760,000 times through the Apple App Store and almost 1.3 million times on the Google Play Store by users in France. Telegram experienced a peak in downloads from both Android and iOS devices in January 2021, due to users' negative reception of the WhatsApp privacy policy update released globally during that month. During the second quarter of 2022 Telegram users increased to 700 million monthly active worldwide, as the platform launched its first direct monetization program.

Russia had the largest share of internet users aged 16 to 64 years who used Telegram among European countries, at **** percent in the third quarter of 2024. In Turkey recorded a usage rate of **** percent.

The largest share of Telegram users as of 2023 was between 25 and 34 years of age, at over ** percent. Users of the messaging app aged younger than 24 years accounted for over ** percent of the user base.

How high is the brand awareness of Telegram in the United States?When it comes to messenger users, brand awareness of Telegram is at ** percent in the United States. The survey was conducted using the concept of aided brand recognition, showing respondents both the brand's logo and the written brand name.How popular is Telegram in the United States?In total, ** percent of U.S. messenger users say they like Telegram. However, in actuality, among the ** percent of U.S. respondents who know Telegram, ** percent of people like the brand.What is the usage share of Telegram in the United States?All in all, ** percent of messenger users in the United States use Telegram. That means, of the ** percent who know the brand, ** percent use them.How loyal are the users of Telegram?Around ** percent of messenger users in the United States say they are likely to use Telegram again. Set in relation to the ** percent usage share of the brand, this means that ** percent of their users show loyalty to the brand.What's the buzz around Telegram in the United States?In February 2024, about ** percent of U.S. messenger users had heard about Telegram in the media, on social media, or in advertising over the past three months. Of the ** percent who know the brand, that's ** percent, meaning at the time of the survey there's little buzz around Telegram in the United States.If you want to compare brands, do deep-dives by survey items of your choice, filter by total online population or users of a certain brand, or drill down on your very own hand-tailored target groups, our Consumer Insights Brand KPI survey has you covered.

India was Telegram's largest market as of 2022. Between January and April of that year, the average number of monthly active users of that messaging app in India stood at nearly ** million. Furthermore, nearly ** million people in Brazil used Telegram on average per month. MAU of Telegram in the United States was close to ** million over the course of 2022.

The number of daily active users (DAU) of WhatsApp in Russia decreased slightly between September and October 2022. From October 1 to October 25, 2022, the messaging app counted **** million active users daily. By comparison, the audience of Telegram saw an increase to **** million users.

In recent years, downloads of mobile instant messaging Telegram have experienced an upward trend in all the examined regions of the world. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Telegram registered 32.19 million downloads in the Europe, the Middle East, and African region, while users in the Asia-Pacific region registered over 32 million downloads in the examined period.

During a survey conducted in early 2025, ** percent of respondents who had Telegram installed on their phones said they used the app every day, down from ** percent a year earlier. Meanwhile, ** percent of interviewees used Telegram a few times per week. The number of Telegram users worldwide grew almost four times between 2018 and 2022.

As of February 2025, two billion users were accessing the WhatsApp messenger on a monthly basis. The app’s reach in usage penetration is particularly strong in markets outside the United States, and it is one of the most popular mobile social apps worldwide. WeChat amassed over 1.38 billion users, and Facebook Messenger amassed around 947 million users worldwide. Instant messaging is a type of online chat which offers real-time text transmission via internet. Since the appearance of the smartphone and the subsequent explosion of mobile apps, low-cost or free chat and social messaging apps have proven themselves as a cheap alternative to operator-based text messaging via SMS. Many messenger apps offer features such as group chats, the exchange of graphics, video and even audio messages as well as stickers or emoticons.

In November 2024, users worldwide spent an average of over **** hours per month using the messenger app Telegram. Users in Russia spent almost ***** hours on average using the popular social and communication app, while users in Singapore spent around **** hours monthly on the app.

According to a 2024 survey, around ** percent of Telegram users in Brazil lived in large cities, with populations between 100 thousand and one million inhabitants. Another ** percent of the social platform users lived in megacities with over * million inhabitants, while medium-sized municipalities concentrated around ** percent of users. Overall, cities with populations over * million accounted for ** percent of the app user base in the country.

According to the 2024 survey, ** percent of Finns used Telegram. Three percent of the respondents used Telegram several times a day, and another ***** percent of respondents used it one to two times per day.

More than ********* of Telegram users in Ukraine were Kyiv Oblast residents, as of 2021. Kharkiv Oblast held the second largest share of the instant messaging app users in the country, at around **** percent.