Nothing can stop Telegram: soon to be a billion users and dreams in their heads

© Unsplash/Christian Wiediger

Telegram continues its crazy rise with a new crucial milestone reached. Messaging is undergoing a metamorphosis and is aiming for profitability next year.

A new app store

The platform has passed the 950 million user mark, its CEO Pavel Durov announced in a publication published on July 22. That's almost as many as Meta's Messenger, which has 980 million users. Telegram had already reached 900 million users in March. If it maintains its cruising speed, the billion mark should be exceeded before the end of the year.

This performance can partly be attributed to the deployment of Hamster Kombat, a cryptocurrency game that quickly gained popularity among the Telegram audience. In 2023, the company launched cryptocurrency payment features that allowed merchants to accept digital assets as payment.

That same year, it began sharing ad revenue with channels that create content to keep users engaged using Toncoin (TON), The Open Network’s native token. However, it hasn’t been all rosy for the company, with its internal cryptocurrency initiative in 2022 failing to achieve the expected results. It hasn’t given up, however, and its efforts are bearing fruit.

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With such initiatives seeing explosive growth, the app is now planning to expand its ecosystem. Telegram will launch an app store and an in-app browser that supports web pages3, Pavel Durov recently revealed.

Profitability in sight

However, Telegram’s efforts in this area have been accompanied by numerous scams and thefts. A scourge that Durov has vowed to combat. “ Soon, Telegram will start displaying the registration month and primary country for public accounts (like on Instagram). We will also allow organizations to use their mini-apps to issue labels for channels, creating a decentralized marketplace for third-party verification ,” he revealed in a message on his channel.

Telegram offers a paid version, the sale of usernames and monetizes certain spaces with advertising. An activity that the platform wants to develop even more to maximize its revenues. By coupling these profits with those from the future application store, the company aims for profitability as early as next year. Pavel Durov also mentioned the possibility of an IPO earlier this year.

“ Generally speaking, we see the value of an IPO as a way to democratize access to the value of Telegram ,” he revealed in an interview with the Financial Times.

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