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Telegram tops 700 million users, launches premium tier

 1 year ago
source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/telegram-tops-700-million-users-192618008.html
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Telegram tops 700 million users, launches premium tier

Manish Singh
Mon, June 20, 2022, 4:26 AM·3 min read

Telegram has amassed over 700 million monthly active users and is rolling out a premium tier with additional features as the instant messaging platform pushes to monetize a portion of its large user base. The firm did not disclose how much it is charging for the premium tier, but the monthly subscription appears to be priced in the range of $5 to $6.

The premium tier adds a range of additional and improved features to the messaging app, which topped 500 million monthly active users in January 2021. Telegram Premium enables users to send files as large as 4GB (up from 2GB) and supports faster downloads, for instance, Telegram said.

Paying customers will also be able to follow up to 1,000 channels, up from 500 offered to free users, and create up to 20 chat folders with as many as 200 chats each. Telegram Premium users will also be able to add up to four accounts in the app and pin up to 10 chats.

The move is Dubai-headquartered firm's attempt to keep its development "driven primarily by its users, not advertisers," it said. It's also the first time an instant messaging app with hundreds of millions of users has rolled out a premium tier. Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple's Messages and Google's Messages, some of Telegram's top rivals, don't offer a premium tier.

Some analysts had earlier hoped that Telegram would be able to monetize the platform through its blockchain token project. But after several delays and regulatory troubles, Telegram said in 2020 that it had abandoned the project and offered to return $1.2 billion it had raised from investors.

In March 2021, Telegram raised over $1 billion from a number of investors including Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners by selling 5-year pre-IPO convertible bonds.

"Today is an important day in the history of Telegram – marking not only a new milestone, but also the beginning of Telegram's sustainable monetization," the firm said in a blog post Sunday.

Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov said earlier this month the move to launch a premium tier was intended to respond to user demand for additional storage/bandwidth.


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