Telegram crosses 1 billion downloads with India becoming its largest market: Report

Telegram has become the latest app to surpass one billion installs globally, with India becoming its largest market, according to Sensor Tower's data. Telegram's market presence grew amid public outrage over WhatsApp's recent privacy policy. The messaging app was launched in late 2013 and it competes against WhatsApp and Facebook's Messenger. 

To attract new users, Telegram recently introduced new features such as group video calls, screen sharing with sound and an upgraded voice chat experience.

Telegram crossed the milestone of one billion downloads worldwide on August 27, Friday, making its way in the list that already has WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, Instagram. Spotify, Netflix and Snapchat. 

India has emerged as the largest market for Telegram with nearly 22 percent of its lifetime installs, the date by Senor Tower said. After India, Russia and Indonesia are the two key markets for Telegram with 10 percent and eight percent of its total installs, respectively.

The app had reached 214.7 million installs in the first half of 2021, showing a 62 percent yearly increase from 2020, when it had 133 million download, the data said. 

While the number mentioned by Sensor Tower does not represent the active user base of Telegram, the app last year had stated that it has nearly 500 million monthly active users.

The major reason behind Telegram's growth in the last few months can be contributed towards the negative sentiment among people towards WhatsApp with the latter's privacy policy update, which it notified of earlier in 2021. WhatsApp had announced a new privacy policy update to attract businesses and helping subsidiaries of its parent company, Facebook.