It is just beginning, but 2021 looks like it will be a crucial year for social apps. The world’s most popular app, WhatsApp, has just announced changes to its privacy policy that will increase Facebook’s powers to use its data. Meanwhile, one of the most controversial apps in the world, Parler, was unceremoniously removed from the Internet this week. Unsurprisingly, this is great news for the rival chat app Telegram.
According to founder and CEO Pavel Durov, Telegram has gained 25 million new users in the last 72 hours by exceeding the mark of 500 million active monthly users. For comparison, the app had an average of about 1.5 million new users per day in 2020, which was already impressive. Durvov says this is due to his company’s simple promise of privacy and security, above all.
Most new users come from Asia (38%), Europe (27%) and Latin America (21%), with around 8% signing up in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). Although not explicitly mentioned in Durov’s post, there are likely to be a good number of Parler orphans joining Telegram – although there are differences between the functions of the two applications, it is rumored that former Parler users are going to messaging applications encrypted in search of a more private application platform. Signal has seen a similar increase in popularity for the same reason.
Telegram recently outlined its plans for revenue, but promised that user privacy will not be compromised. The ads will only be used on one-to-many channels and the premium paid features will be targeted at businesses and advanced users. Everything you currently use for free will remain free. There was a small controversy earlier this month when we found out that the feature next to the app could be used to find out a user’s exact location instead of an approximate one, but that comes with the territory of an optional location sharing feature at your own risk.
