Telegram crosses one billion downloads; India is the largest market with 22% of downloads

The instant messaging app Telegram has surpassed 1 billion downloads worldwide, according to a Sensor Tower report. Telegram launched in late 2013 and took about eight years to reach the milestone on Friday, August 27. The Sensor Tower report by Tech Crunch also said that India is the largest market for Telegram, with 22 percent of downloads coming from the country. This is similar to Telegram's biggest rival WhatsApp, which also has India as its largest market. The Sensor Tower report says that Telegram downloads accelerated in 2021. This could be the result of the controversy surrounding WhatsApp's new privacy policy and the company's handling of it.

According to the Sensor Tower report, 22 percent of Telegram downloads came from India. India is followed by Russia, which accounts for about 10 percent of all installs, followed by Indonesia, which accounts for 8 percent of downloads. The report says that in the first half of 2021, Telegram reached about 214.7 million installs, a 61 percent year-on-year growth from 133 million in the first half of 2020. It is important to note that the total number of installs did not it is the same as the active user base of the application. Telegram had around 500 million monthly active users in early 2021.

This makes Telegram the 15th app globally to have been downloaded a billion times or more, according to the Sensor Tower report. Other apps that have reached 1 billion downloads include WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify, and Netflix. Telegram earlier this year raised over $ 1 billion (approximately Rs 7,326 crore) in the most recent funding round.