Telegram is a chat service similar to Meta-owned WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Since its launch in August of 2013, Telegram has been a favorite in general as it is free and has a strict privacy policy. Many people think of Telegram as a game-changer since it is entirely focused on the user: not only does it feature encrypted calls and texts, but it also doesn’t have advertisements and is dedicated to remaining free indefinitely.
Telegram’s popularity has soared in recent years. In fact, many WhatsApp users switched to Telegram earlier this year to take advantage of its robust privacy features. WhatsApp users were irritated by frequent revisions of its privacy policy, which included data sharing with its parent company Meta (Facebook).
As of today, Telegram has more than 550 million Monthly Active Users and is a huge platform for marketers to grow. So to help you, fellow marketers, we have collected all the latest data from all across the Web and presented in this post. Read on to know all of it.
Telegram Corporation at a glance
Telegram is an instant messaging service that runs on cloud-based technology Founded by Nikolai Durov (co-founder), Pavel Durov (cofounder, CEO) which is freeware and cross-platform. It was released on 14th Aug 2013 for iOS and in Oct 2013 for Android. Telegram’s servers are located across the globe to reduce frequent data loads, with 5 data centers in various locations and an operating center in Dubai, UAE.
The Telegram development team is presently situated in the UAE, Dubai.
Telegram FZ-LLC, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, is the company behind the Telegram smartphone app.
Telegram’s parent firm (Telegram Group Inc.) has its legal address in the British Virgin Islands.
Telegram UK Holdings Ltd, situated in the United Kingdom, is the legal representation for data protection regulations.
Telegram Statistics: Editor’s Pick
- Telegram has 550+ million monthly active users and projects over one billion users by the end of 2022. Since 2018, the user count has increased by 175%
- Telegram was 7th most downloaded application as of August 2021 (Android and iOS combined)
- In 2020, Telegram had 540 million overall downloads, with 500 million coming from Android smartphones.
- The Daily Active User count of Telegram is 55.2 million.
- An average telegram user spends almost 3 hours (2.9) on the application every month.
- Telegram users account for 8.7% of the world population.
- As of January 2021, Telegram is valued around $30 billion.
- Telegram is the world’s 9th most popular social platform globally.
- Every day, 1.5 million new people join Telegram.
- 15+ billion messages are sent over telegram daily.
Telegram Monthly Active Users
- Telegram has 550+ million monthly active users, according to corporate figures. That is a 10% rise since the beginning of 2021.
- Over the last three and a half years, Telegram has gained 350 million new users.
- In January of 2021, 25 million new users joined Telegram in just 72 hours. This works out to around 8.33 mil. new signups every day.
- In fact, since its inception in 2013, Telegram’s user base has grown at a pace of more than 40% every year.
Below is the complete overview of the MAUs since 2014
| DATE | MAU (Monthly Active Users) |
| March 2014 | 35 mil |
| December 2014 | 50 mil |
| September 2015 | 60 mil |
| February 2016 | 100 mil |
| December 2017 | 180 mil |
| March 2018 | 200 mil |
| October 2019 | 300 mil |
| April 2020 | 400 mil |
| January 2021 | 500 mil |
| July 2021 | 550 mil |
Sources: (Telegram, Statista)
Telegram Daily Active Users
- Telegram has 55.2 million daily active users (DAUs) on iOS and Android platforms combined. Since November of 2020, the rate has risen by more than 30%.
- Telegram had an estimated 15 mil DAUs as of March 2014.
- During the Facebook and Instagram downtime on October 4th, 2021, Telegram reported a surge of 70 million users in a single day.
Source: (Telegram, Apptopia, and Techcrunch)
Usage time of Telegram users
- Telegram’s typical Android user spends 2.9 (Almost 3) hours every month using the application.
- Telegram’s average usage time is marginally more than the 2.7 hours/month spent on Meta’s Facebook Messenger.
Telegram Demographics
- over 31% of Telegram users in 2021 were between the ages of 25 – 34.
Users under the age of 24 made for over a third of the messaging app’s user base.
- Male users account for 58.6% and Female users for 41.4% over the platform.
- 38% of users are based in Asia, 27% in Europe, 21% from Latin America, and 8% from the Middle East and North Africa as of 2021 data.
- India had the most Telegram installations in January 2021, with 24%, followed by Indonesia with 10%.
- In the year 2020, Telegram was the top downloaded social media app across 20 countries.
- This software was used by only 1.4% of American users (according to a 2018 report).
- Telegram is used by 29.4% of Brazilians.
- Telegram presently has 18 million users in Uzbekistan.
- In Hong Kong, lifetime installations have risen to 1.7 million.
North and South America Specific Statistics
- Telegram penetration rate in the United States reached 3% in 2020. improvement from 2019 where the rate was just 1.85% (Statista)
- 10 Million People from united States of America access telegram on a monthly basis
- 23% of Brazilians use Telegram on a daily basis. (Mobile Time)
- Only 3% of Brazilian respondents indicated they never used Telegram. (Mobile Time)
- 5% of Canadians use Telegram on a regular basis (statista)
Europe Specific Statistics
- 8% of Netherlands people use Telegram. In contrast, only 3% of UK Citizens use Telegram.
- The month of May 2020 saw the highest number of Telegram downloads in Belgium: 30,643.
- In Italy, Telegram has a 32% penetration rate. (Statista)
- 25% of the Spanish population use Telegram on a regular basis. (Statista)
- Telegram is used by 32% of Spanish millennials. (Elogia)
- In Austria 11% of the population uses Telegram. (Statista)
- Telegram is used by 6% of Nordic Finland users. (Statista)
Asia Pacific Statistics
- Telegram has 31.62 mil. MAUs in Russia. (vimpelCom)
- Telegram is used by 3.9% of South Koreans on a regular basis. (Ministry of Science and Information Technology)
- 40% of Telegram users from Moscow were between the ages of 25 and 34. (VimpelCom)
- Telegram has a 4% penetration rate in Australia (Statista)
- In Singapore, Telegram has a penetration rate of 30.1 percent. (DataReportal)
- Telegram has a 22% penetration rate in the Philippines. (DataReportal)
- 9% of Taiwanese use Telegram. (DataReportal)
- 13.8% people in hong kong use Telegram (We Are Social)
- Telegram is used by 28.5% of Indonesians. (DataReportal)
- telegram application has been downloaded 220 million times in India (As of Aug 2021) , accounting for 22% of all Telegram downloads globally.
African Statistics
- 56.3% of NIgerians use Telegram (DataReportal)
- 19.7 South Africans use Telegram (DataReportal)
- 40.8% Ghanians use Telegram (DataReportal)
Telegram Availability
Telegram is available across platforms like Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, Web platform
- In 155 out of 175 countries have access to Telegram
- Telegram is accessible to Google Play Store users in all 155 Nations.
- Telegram is available in 52 Nations on the Windows Store.
Source: (Appfigures)
Telegram Feature statistics
- Telegram has over 20,000 stickers
- Telegram is available in 58 languages
- Telegram spend 0$ on advertising
Telegram Channel Statistics
Telegram Introduced a channel feature in 2015 and it has boomed since.
Below is the overview of the most popular channels on the platform
| Channel Names | Number of Followers (in Millions) |
| Telegram Tips | 7.5 |
| Telegram News | 6.1 |
| Bollywood HD Movies Latest | 4.1 |
| Proxy MTProto | 3.3 |
| Crypto Trading Bitcoin | 2.9 |
| Bitcoin News Crypto and Technical Analyst | 2.8 |
| F*CKTS | 2.1 |
| Movies Temple | 2.1 |
| Amir Tataloo | 1.9 |
| MyPoroxy | 1.8 |
Source: (Telegram Analytics)
Most Popular Channel Categories
- Movies
- crypto
- tv series
- news
- music
- humor
- education
- trading
- betting
- Telegram proxy
Here is an overview of the same
| Channel Category | Share of respondents (in %) |
| News related | 82 |
| Entertainment related | 59 |
| Politically related | 59 |
| Education-related | 55 |
| News from own industry-related | 43 |
| bloggers and celebrities related | 27 |
| Personal channels of friends | 27 |
| products and discounts related | 16 |
| job offers related | 15 |
| Internal channels of companies | 13 |
| Channels of brands companies | 11 |
| Darkweb related | 8 |
Source: (Statista)
Most Followed Political leaders on Telegram
| Leaders | Number of Subscribers |
| Jair M. Bolsonaro (President of Brazil) | 1,000,000 |
| Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (President of Turkey) | 277,300 |
| Shavkat Mirziyoyev (President of Uzbekistan) | 181,100 |
| Andrés Manuel López Obrador (President of Mexico) | 136,000 |
| Abiy Ahmed Ali (Prime Minister of Ethiopia) | 137,400 |
| Volodymyr Zelensky (President of Ukraine) | 51,700 |
| Lee Hsien Loong (Prime Minister of Singapore) | 19,600 |
- Telegram’s stats function is only available to channels with 1,000 or more users. (Medium)
- Knygy ukrainskoyu is Ukraine’s most popular book telegram channel. There were 400.66k engagements in all. With 390.26k engagements, is a close second. (Ukrainian Book Institute)
- AndroHack is Russia’s most popular gaming and book related channel. There are 817.1k people that signed up for it.
- Prior to being deactivated, an organisation using a Nazi flag as its symbol had 10,000 members. (TechCrunch)
- Telegram has removed 15 terrorist channels. ( NBC News)
- The Telegram statistics channel reveals that only the first 200 users can be added by channel owners. (Telegram)
- Cryptocurrency related channels have the most bots (1,001), according to the Telegram statistics bot. (Telegram)
Telegram Usage by Country
| Nation | Rank in Nation amongst other social media applications |
| United States | 2 |
| United Kingdom | 2 |
| Australia | 4 |
| Germany | 1 |
| Netherlands | 2 |
| Russia | 1 |
| India | 2 |
| Brazil | 1 |
| Malaysia | 1 |
Telegram Ecommerce related Statistics
- Telegram’s most popular product category is Chinese goods, followed by digital equipment and consumer loans. The total e-commerce of Chinese items via the social networking site topped $12 million. (statista)
- Telegram is used to swap consumer loans.The sales in this category has a value of $3.1 Million (Admitad)
- Food delivery has the lowest amount of sales, yet it still generates $57,000. (Admitad)
- 31% of Spanish internet users use Telegram for online shopping. (IAB Spain)
- The Telegram Payments 2.0 functionality accepts 84 different currencies. (Telegram)
- The minimum and maximum exchange amounts were $1 and $10,000, respectively. (Telegram)
Telegram Revenue Statistics
- Telegram’s own blockchain based cryptocurrency, Gram, was shut down in 2020 after the firm failed to register an early $1.7 billion token sale. (The Verge)
- In 2018, Telegram received $1.7 billion to support its aim to commercialize the network. (TechCrunch)
- After a disagreement with the app’s cryptocurrency company, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the US fined Telegram with $18.5 Mil. (MarketWatch)
- Telegram had to repay $1.2 billion to its investors as part of the civil penalty. (MarketWatch)
- Telegram would have had profits worth $4 billion if the Information technology department hadn’t phased out Gram (cryptocurrency).
Telegram Security based statistics
- IP address, mobile number, contacts list, and user ID are the four things Telegram gathers and relates back to users. (Business Insider)
- A deepfake bot targeted 680,000+ females, many of whom were under the age of 18. (Business Insider)
- Around 70% of the deep fake bot’s users were located in or near Russia. (Business Insider)
- 3.77% of malware camouflaged as an internet communication solution was spread through Telegram. (Securelist)
- In Singapore, Telegram was used in 2.1% of eCommerce related frauds as of 2020.
- Telegram is one of the safest app declared by many organizations and that is why it is used by many extremist groups
Conclusion: Telegram Statistics
People who are against these big tech giants exploiting users’ privacy are opting for Telegram. People use Telegram to get end-to-end encryption, a message self-destructs mechanism, and a security feature that prevents users from forwarding messages and other material. Users are certain that their data is their own as a result of this.
What makes Telegram appealing to those who value privacy also makes it appealing to persons and organizations who want to conduct covert operations. Nonetheless, you don’t have to worry about such activities as long as you are joining safe channels and texting official and verified accounts.
As Telegram continues to develop, It is spreading rapidly across the globe. We’ll see even more incredible data regarding it in the future and we will make sure to update it here on this post.
