Instant messaging app Telegram is gaining popularity. It has just achieved a new milestone in downloads. Telegram has now become the most downloaded app in the world. Data showed that Telegram in January 2021 was downloaded more than 63 million times. This is the highest number in the non-gaming category. This translates into 3.8 times of the apps total downloads in the corresponding period a year ago. The massive surge was mainly driven by Indian users. Indians contributed around 24 percent to the 63 million downloads. This means India saw the largest number of Telegram installs. No country was close to even half of the total downloads in India. The second country on the list was Indonesia with 10 percent.
On the Play Store, Telegram was at the ninth spot in December last year in the overall downloads in the non-gaming category. On the App Store, Telegram entered the list of top 10 most downloaded in the non-gaming category. It has grabbed the fourth spot. Telegram’s popularity increased dramatically after a massive row over WhatsApp. WhatsApp brought a new privacy policy for which it faced a backlash. It was sending notifications to users in India asking them to accept the new policy. The company said that accounts not accepting the new policy will be deleted from the platform. The policy was slated to come into effect from February 8. But WhatsApp delayed the implementation by three months.
Telegram saw people shifting from WhatsApp to the platform in the wake of the controversy. The messages on the platform are encrypted. In another related development, Telegram said that it will allow the users to bring chat history to the platform from WhatsApp and other apps. The facility is for both individuals and groups. Users can import messages, photos, and videos. The moved messages and media will not occupy extra space. Telegram was launched in 2013. Telegram chats and calls are end-to-end encrypted. Telegram was ranked the eighth most downloaded app in 2020 in the world. Telegram founder Pavel Durov has promised to launch new capabilities in the coming days to enhance user experience. It recently launched multiple pinned messages feature among others.
