Telegram was adding nearly 500,000 users daily before Durov’s arrest

After officially launching in August 2013, the social media and messaging platform Telegram quickly started gaining popularity as a more private alternative to similar apps.

Telegram’s growth surged in 2024, with Finbold’s research, conducted on September 3, showing that it added over 485,000 active users daily between April and late July – just one month before Pavel Durov, Telegram’s founder and CEO, was arrested by French police.

Such a pace of growth means that Telegram stood at 900 million on April 10, 2024, and rose to 950 million by July 22, 2024, ensuring that almost a full eight of the world’s total population is actively using the platform.

Telegram continues a history of strong user growth

While the growth rate in 2024 has been significant, it is interesting that Durov himself reported in July 2023 that his social media platform was gaining 2.5 million new accounts daily.

Still, it is worth pointing out that not all new accounts on any given platform reliably turn into active monthly users (MoUs) – a term frequently used by various social media websites, including Instagram, X, and Facebook, to express their growth and popularity.

Furthermore, it is somewhat harder to gauge Telegram’s actual growth rate over the years as several milestone announcements have not been provided with specific dates. 

For example, Durov revealed on his personal channel on December 31, 2022, that the number of MoUs had reached 700 million, though it is not entirely clear what the data breakoff date is.

Similarly, in a lengthy post discussing the Telegram ban in Russia made in June 2020, Pavel Durov revealed that by May of that year, the number of active monthly users hit 400 million.

Additionally, the founder and CEO used that same post to highlight the platform’s resilience, pointing out that Moscow’s ban – implemented on April 13, 2018 – did not significantly reduce the number of Russians on the app.

Telegram most popular in the ‘Global South,’ few Westerners use the platform

It is also interesting that Telegram is significantly more popular in countries considered a part of the ‘Global South’ than in Western nations. 

For example, recent data published by Statista showcases that 45% of surveyed people in India, 38% in Brazil, 34% in Mexico, and 32% in South Africa use the platform regularly.

Simultaneously, Telegram is most popular in Italy among the examined ‘Global North’ nations, and 29% of Italians use the app daily. In Germany, only 16% of respondents stated they are regularly on the platform, 10% in the United Kingdom, 9% in the United States, and only 1% in Japan.

The statistics may not be as surprising as they first appear, however. Pavel Durov is a Russian entrepreneur living in the United Arab Emirates, and many of the countries in which Telegram is popular either used to have strong ties to the Soviet Union or are close to modern Russia through the BRICS alliance.