The messaging app Telegram has now surpassed 1 billion downloads on the Google Play Store. This achievement seems to be the effect of Facebook's recent downsizing of services, such as WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram.
This Facebook service interruption has been around for a long time, so many users have switched to other applications and Telegram has become one of the main choices for users. It is known that Telegram has a number of features that its competitors such as WhatsApp do not have.
One of them is the ability to use Telegram on multiple devices at the same time. In WhatsApp itself, the feature is still being matured, aka it is quite late in implementation.
Telegram's growth in recent years has indeed continued to increase along with regular improvements and features that are able to compete with similar applications.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said the messaging app had more than 500 million monthly active users by early 2021.
With WhatsApp and Messenger crashing, Durov also recently shared via his public Telegram channel that more than 70 million have joined his service as a result of the disruption.
For Telegram to reach 1 billion downloads on the Play Store is certainly quite encouraging. But it's important to note that this doesn't mean there are 1 billion people out there who use this app on a regular basis.
These download figures also don't include sideloading APKs from the official website. Teleram itself is currently headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, having previously moved from country to country. Pavel Durov decided to stay there.