Telegram Statistics By Active Users, Revenue, Demographics And Facts

Introduction

Telegram Statistics: Telegram, founded in 2013 by Nikolai and Pavel Durov, has matured into a top dog among global messaging platforms. With a strong focus on privacy, speed, and an array of features, Telegram has seen incredible growth over the years. By July 2024, the platform had reached over 950 million active users each month, thus establishing itself as one of the foremost messaging applications worldwide.

This article looks into the Telegram statistics, covering user growth, financial performance, improvements in features, and patterns of use by region.

Editor’s Choice

• According to Telegram statistics, by 2023, Telegram had generated US$68.8 million in revenue, a 52.9 % increase from US$45 million in 2022 and a staggering 632% rise from US$9.4 million in 2021.
• Mainly advertising, particularly in large public one-to-many channels, is the channel through which Telegram earns revenues.
• In terms of in-app revenues, Telegram was able to generate a total of US$2.4 million from its activities in the Apple App Store in July 2023, while the Google Play Store would contribute revenues above US$588,000.
• Telegram statistics reveal that Telegram earned US$14 million in App Store revenue from June 2022 to July 2023, grossing over US$2.5 million from Russia, US$1.55 million from Ukraine, and US$1.52 million from the U.S.
• WhatsApp leads the pack among global mobile messaging apps with 2 billion monthly active users as of February 2025, and WeChat comes next with 1.38 billion users, while Facebook Messenger has 947 million.
• Telegram, with 950 million monthly active users in July 2024, boasts a tenfold growth since its inception in 2013.
• 80% of Telegram users use the app as their principal source of news.
• The third quarter of 2024 saw 52.6 million downloads in EMEA and underlying nearly 63 million downloads in the Asia-Pacific.
• Telegram statistics state that India regionally led in Telegram downloads in 2024, with approximately 100 million installs, followed by downloads from Russia at 38.4 million and the U.S. at 38.2 million.
• Telegram has over 10 million bots to facilitate a variety of functions, such as payments, automation, and gaming.
• Telegram Tips, one of its largest channels, had 8.92 million followers by May 2023.
• An estimated 70% of Telegram channel administrators earn through advertising, while 40% sell products/services.
• The largest demographic of Telegram users is between the ages of 25 and 34, comprising 29.4% of the total users.
• The gender split on the platform sees a predominance of males (58%), whereas females hold a 42% share.
• Telegram statistics show that Telegram users tend to spend an average of 3 hours and 45 minutes a month on the app, lower than the app’s female-favored competitors, WhatsApp (17 hours and 6 minutes) and Instagram (15 hours and 50 minutes).

Telegram Key Facts

• Globally, Telegram is the third most downloaded messaging app.
• The app has been investigated by several countries, including France, where CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in August 2024 on allegations of being implicated in crimes such as drug trafficking and organized crime.
• Telegram is accused of being the app of choice for some right-wing extremist organizations.
• Originally launched in Russia in 2013 by Nikolai and Pavel Durov, the app is now managed under Telegram FZ-LLC in Dubai.
• It has been widely used during protests in Belarus, Hong Kong, South Korea, and the USA, whereas its use is being restricted in various countries like China, Iran, and India.
• Telegram was briefly suspended in Brazil and Russia, and many users switched to Telegram after Russia restricted Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter following its invasion of Ukraine.
• Telegram gained popularity during January 2021 when WhatsApp updated its privacy policy, leading to a six-point jump in market share.
• Features of Telegram include end-to-end encrypted Secret chats, self-destructing messages, channels, groups, and many different types of bots to carry out tasks, including to make payments.
• In June 2022, Telegram launched a freemium model, providing perks to paid subscribers, such as quicker downloads, premium stickers, and access to a greater number of channels.
• In February 2024, Telegram earned its in-app revenue, exceeding US$6 million after deducting fees and taxes, wherein most of the revenue was received from iOS users.
• Telegram doesn’t sell ads on the platform.
• In 2018, Telegram aimed to create a blockchain platform, TON, and raise US$1.7 billion in investments in its associated cryptocurrency, Gram, before being stopped by the SEC in 2019.
• In March 2024, Telegram raised US$330 million from the sale of capital bonds.
• In November 2022, Telegram offered its users the ability to buy and sell their usernames using the cryptocurrency Toncoin on the platform Fragment.

Telegram Revenue

(Source: whop.com)

• Telegram statistics show that Telegram Premium. Besides, the platform has opted to create its ad system, aimed specifically at large public one-to-many channels, to help pay for server and traffic costs.
• By 2023, the Telegram revenue bill stood at US$68.8 million, with 52.9% growth from US$45 million in 2022 and an amazing 632% growth from US$9.4 million in 2021.
• Rapid revenue growth commenced after the monetisation activities of the company by launching the Telegram Premium and principal Telegram Ad platform.
• The bulk of Telegram’s revenues, according to its CEO, is generated chiefly from advertisements. There is a history of the in-app revenue of Telegram that was US$2.4 million in July 2023 on the Apple App Store, while revenue from the Google Play Store crossed US$588K.
• The launching of the freemium model with paid subscriptions in June 2022 was the key reason for the ramp-up of the revenue. The in-app revenue of Telegram saw a ramp-up of six times between June and December 2022, from US$250,000 to US$1.5 million.
• In total, Telegram brought in a remarkable revenue of US$14 million between June 2022 and July 2023 from the App Store.
• A big part of this revenue can be credited to Russia, contributing over US$2.5 million, closely followed by Ukraine with US$1.55 million and then the United States with US$1.52 million.

Most Popular Global Mobile Messaging Apps By Monthly Active Users

(Reference: statista.com)

• Telegram statistics show that 2 billion active users were using WhatsApp monthly by February 2025. Since WhatsApp is one of the most popular mobile social application platforms in the world, its penetration into the markets is heavier in those outside the U.S.
• In comparison, WeChat had amassed over 1.38 billion users, while Facebook Messenger had around 947 million users around the world.
• An instant messaging service allows people to text in real time over the internet.
• With the proliferation of smartphones and mobile applications, free or cheap messaging alternatives emerged to SMS.
• With the increasing number of messaging platforms, new features began to be introduced, such as group chats and multimedia resource sharing, like pictures, videos, and audio messages, along with stickers and emoticons.

Telegram Monthly Active Users

(Reference: statista.com)

• Telegram statistics state that, as far as Telegram is concerned, a cloud-based mobile messaging app, it has a 950 million monthly active user base worldwide by July 2024.
• The app was founded by brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov in 2013 after they had previously established the Russian social networking site VK, which they had abandoned following its takeover by the Mail.ru Group.
• In 2023, the age group within which the majority of Telegram’s global users fall is between 25 and 34.
• A considerable percentage, around 80 %of users, reported using the platform primarily for news. In 2021, Telegram witnessed a sudden increase in popularity when WhatsApp announced the controversial privacy policy update. This led to a sudden increase in the audience and downloads for Telegram, estimated to be 167 million worldwide.
• However, while Telegram markets itself as a secure messaging alternative, many experts have raised concerns about the app’s reliability, especially when compared to other mainstream messaging apps, such as LINE and WhatsApp.
• The German consumer organisation Stiftung Warentest and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have voiced their skepticism concerning the security aspects of Telegram.
• Criticism includes the lack of automatic end-to-end encryption on the app, something that both WhatsApp and LINE activate by default.

Telegram Global Downloads 2020-2024, By Region

(Reference: statista.com)

• In the past few years, the total number of downloads of Telegram has consistently been increasing across each region in the world.
• The EMEA region, for instance, recorded a total of 52.6 million downloads from the application for the third quarter of 2024, reflecting the continuous growth of the app that occurred largely during this period.
• In a show of even greater adoption, the Asia-Pacific region recorded almost 63 million downloads in the same quarter.
• Telegram statistics indicate that such an upward trend should indicate growing popularity and use by an increasing number of users from different parts of the world.

Telegram Apps Download By Country

(Reference: statista.com)

• Telegram statistics show that most app downloads were in India in 2024; Indian users were determined to download the messaging app almost 100 million times.
• Over the period, the figure for Russia would stand at more than 38.4 million downloads, ranking the country second in download numbers, followed closely by the United States with 38.2 million downloads.
• In Latin America, it was Brazil that recorded the largest print in downloads, while in Western Europe, the champions were France and Germany.
• Meanwhile, Telegram was the fourth most used social network in India, coming after WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. Thus, in the third quarter of the year 2023, more than 58 % of all active social media users in India revealed that they had used Telegram in the last month.
• However, the number of users still had an engagement that was vastly below those of other major platforms.
• On average, Indian users spent just 2.3 hours on Telegram in the year 2021, which was ten times lower than the average time spent on WhatsApp.
• According to projections, the application will have attained 950 million active users by July 2024. This was after it increased membership ten times between December 2014 and July 2024.
• Following the new privacy policy adopted by WhatsApp in early 2021, the world witnessed an increase in the number of downloads during the first quarter of the same year, as many people deserted the app for the new alternative.
• It further spurred in popularity during March 2022 following a ban on Facebook and Instagram in Russia, posting an increase of 15 %in daily active users in the country from January to March 2022.

Telegram Bot Statistics

• Telegram statistics show that Telegram allows developers to build chatbots and mini-apps, and now it’s hosting more than 10 million bots on its free platform.
• They are small applications running entirely within Telegram and have various capabilities. The bots replace typical functions of websites with a flexible JavaScript-built interface.
• They also facilitate payments over 20 integrated payment providers in more than 200 countries. It is possible to create personalised tools that serve several functions, like file conversion or chat management.
• Bots can even directly interact with Gmail, GitHub, and YouTube, thereby bringing within-app functionality.
• Also, developers can design and run single or multiplayer games with their social network and bring users together based on interests, all with Telegram bots.
• In December 2023, Telegram dished out the 10th update of the year, the biggest update on the bot front ever in the channel.

Telegram Channel Statistics

• Telegram statistics indicate that as of May 2023, Telegram Tips was the most subscribed channel in the platform, with nearly 8.92 million followers.
• Other channels that had a huge number of subscribers included Telegram News with 6.32 million subscribers, ProxyMTProto with 6.11 million, zz_s5 with 5.89 million, ip_a6 with 4.93 million, and Pryamoy Efir with 4.64 million subscribers.
• Research by TGStat in 2023 revealed that about 36 % of administrators opening their channels had started the channels just within a year before the study.
• Another 27 %were in the second year of channel management, 26 % had been managing their channels for more than two years, and 11 % had been operating their channels for at least five years.
• Monetisation was a key aspect in the management of channels, with 70 % of those who administer channels gaining revenue from advertising placements.
• Also, 40 % made money by selling their goods or services, while 15 % made income through partner programs. The most followed channels on Telegram in 2023 were news
  channels. They had been followed by over 85 % of app users.
• Those in the second and third slots were entertainment and educational channels, respectively, followed by 62% and 58 % of users. Political channels had a following of 50%, while industry-specific news was followed by 48 users.
• Moreover, 45 % of users were subscribed to individual channels of friends, while 36 % followed channels for special military operations.

Telegram Premium Subscribers

(Source: demandsage.com)

• Telegram statistics reveal that Telegram Premium has been successful in attracting subscribers since its very launch. Before the launch, its subscriber count was relatively small, starting from 150,000 users in July 2022 and increasing to 260,000 users in August 2022.
• However, the subscriber count surged as it went along, reaching a milestone of 1 million subscribers in December 2022.
• At 3.5 million as of October 2023, it is forecasted that over 4 million on Telegram will be subscribed to the Premium service by the end of December 2023.
• So, let it be known that up to 5 million would subscribe by January of 2024 alone because the number continued to rise into 2024.
• Two times the 5 million made it to the beginning of the year, so by September 2024, the service was enjoying a hefty milestone of touching 10 million.
• Indeed, such rapid growth shows the booming demand for premium services on the platform.

Telegram Demographics

• The largest age group using Telegram is from 25 to 34, contributing 29.4% of total users.
• The next largest group is aged 35 to 44, comprising 23.8%, and the age group over 45 contributes 21.6% of users, whereas only 18.8% fall within the 18-24 age bracket.
• The smallest user group consists of those aged under 17 years, contributing only 6.4% to Telegram’s audience. As per gender distribution.
• Telegram has an extraordinarily high percentage of males, with more than 58% of its users being men and only 42% being women. This gives one of the clearest images of well-appealed telegrams to young and middle-aged men.

Time Spent On Social Media Platform

(Source: demandsage.com)

• The data shows users’ average time spent per month on different social media platforms and messaging apps.
• Starting from the top, TikTok users spend an average of 34 hours monthly on the app, signaling the short-form video platform’s high engagement levels from exciting content.
• Just after TikTok are Telegram users, who spend 3 hours and 45 minutes a month, a bit more than Snapchat, which claims about 3 hours and 33 minutes, and Facebook Messenger, which is 3 hours and 21 minutes. This means that Telegram is generally popular but comparatively less engaging than popular social apps.
• YouTube follows closely at an average of 28 hours and 5 minutes, as the long video platform is. Facebook comes in third place, with 19 hours and 47 minutes being spent by users in an average month, proving its relevance to social networking and community engagement.
• WhatsApp Messenger, a very active instant messaging platform, has an average of 17 hours and 6 minutes; Instagram users spend about 15 hours and 50 minutes a month, which shows round-the-clock engagement with visual content.
• Line, a dominant messaging app in some Asian markets, has 8 hours and 14 minutes of average usage time. Then comes X (formerly Twitter) with 4 hours and 40 minutes, indicating lower yet steady engagement levels for real-time discussions and news updates.
• The average time spent on Pinterest is 1 hour and 49 minutes monthly, indicating its niche positioning as a platform for inspiration and sharing ideas.
• The lowest average monthly time spent is therefore well in line with LinkedIn’s more focused and career-oriented audience of 51 minutes.

Conclusion

According to Telegram statistics, in establishing itself as one of the leading messaging platforms, Telegram has reported 950 million monthly active users for the year 2024. That transformative growth tells of monetisation through premium subscriptions and ads, with a well-established presence in key markets across the globe. Telegram is still favoured for news and business along with socialisation, despite security risks and regulatory scrutiny.

The growing bot environment, expanding premium user base, and accompanying features keep contributing to their success story. Large downloads in India, Russia, and the U.S. suggest a further evolution of Telegram with growth and innovation in the messaging app world.

Maitrayee Dey

Maitrayee Dey has a background in Electrical Engineering and has worked in various technical roles before transitioning to writing. Specializing in technology and Artificial Intelligence, she has served as an Academic Research Analyst and Freelance Writer, particularly focusing on education and healthcare in Australia. Maitrayee's lifelong passions for writing and painting led her to pursue a full-time writing career. She is also the creator of a cooking YouTube channel, where she shares her culinary adventures. At Smartphone Thoughts, Maitrayee brings her expertise in technology to provide in-depth smartphone reviews and app-related statistics, making complex topics easy to understand for all readers.

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