How Many People Use Telegram?
Written by Brian Dean
Telegram was launched on August 14, 2013, as a privacy-focused, ad-free messaging app. First available on iOS, the alpha version of the Android app was released later that same year.
Telegram brought in approximately 100,000 daily active users in its first year.
Today, it reportedly has more than 900 million monthly active users. Ranked by the number of downloads, Telegram is among the top 10 most popular social networks in the world.
Read on to find all the important Telegram usage statistics for 2024. Here’s a full breakdown of what we’ll cover:
- Telegram Statistics (Top Picks)
- Telegram Monthly Active Users
- Telegram Daily Active Users
- Telegram Premium Subscribers
- Telegram App Downloads
- Average Time Spent on Telegram
- Where Is Telegram Based?
- Ranked: Telegram Is the 8th Most Used Social Media Platform Worldwide
- Telegram Gender Demographics
- Telegram Popularity in Select Countries
- Telegram Availability
Important Telegram Stats
- Telegram has 900 million monthly active users
- Telegram app downloads across App Store and Google Play reached 310.94 million in the first 9 months of 2023 alone
- Telegram has 4 million paying users for its optional subscription service
- The average Telegram user spends nearly 3 hours 50 minutes on the app each month
Telegram Monthly Active Users
According to company data, Telegram has 900 million monthly active users as of 2024. An increase of 12.5% since 2023.
Since April 2020, the messenger app added 500 million users to its user base.
According to Telegram founder Pavel Durov, 2.5 million users sign up for Telegram every day.
Here’s a full breakdown of Telegram users over time:
| Date | Monthly active users |
|---|---|
| March 2014 | 35 million |
| December 2014 | 50 million |
| September 2015 | 60 million |
| February 2016 | 100 million |
| December 2017 | 180 million |
| March 2018 | 200 million |
| October 2019 | 300 million |
| April 2020 | 400 million |
| January 2021 | 500 million |
| July 2021 | 550 million |
| June 2022 | 700 million |
| 2023 | 800 million |
| 2024 | 900 million |
Sources: Statista, Telegram 1, Telegram 2, DataReportal, TechCrunch, Financial Times
Telegram Daily Active Users
According to Similarweb estimates, Telegram had 196 million daily active users on Android in 2022 (with 47.5% of monthly active user base checking the app daily) which suggests a current daily active user base on all available platforms could be much larger.
Based on Similarweb data, Telegram ranked 3rd by number of daily active users (after WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger) among messaging apps worldwide.
Source: Similarweb
Telegram Premium Subscribers
Telegram offers an optional subscription service that unlocks exclusive features available to paying users only, including 4 GB file uploads (vs. standard 2 GB), faster download speed, premium stickers among others.
According to Pavel Durov (Telegram founder), Telegram Premium hit 4 million paying users in December 2023. Back in July 2023, Telegram had 2 million premium subscribers.
Despite a 2x increase in just 5 months, only 0.5% of Telegram’s monthly active user base pay for premium subscription, while the rest use the free version.
Source: Telegram
Telegram App Downloads
Telegram’s app downloads reached 113.52 million in Q3 2023, representing a 24.05% increase year-over-year change.
Telegram downloads hit 310.94 million downloads in the first 9 months of 2023.
In November 2023, Telegram was downloaded 27 million times and ranked as 5th most downloaded app (WhatsApp ranked 4th with 34 million).
Here’s a detailed breakdown of Telegram global downloads across App Store and Google Play since Q1 2020:
| Date | App downloads |
|---|---|
| Q1 2020 | 55.81 million |
| Q2 2020 | 82.77 million |
| Q3 2020 | 88.09 million |
| Q4 2020 | 97.83 million |
| Q1 2021 | 166.83 million |
| Q2 2021 | 79.56 million |
| Q3 2021 | 84.77 million |
| Q4 2021 | 98.59 million |
| Q1 2022 | 98.39 million |
| Q2 2022 | 96.82 million |
| Q3 2022 | 91.51 million |
| Q4 2022 | 94.69 million |
| Q1 2023 | 96.88 million |
| Q2 2023 | 100.54 million |
| Q3 2023 | 113.52 million |
Sources: AppMagic, Appfigures
How Much Time Do Telegram Users Spend on the App?
The average user of Telegram on Android spent approximately 3 hours 50 minutes per month using the app between April and June 2022.
Source: DataReportal
Where Is Telegram Based?
Telegram’s development team is currently based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The issuer of the Telegram mobile app is Telegram FZ-LLC, an organization registered in the United Arab Emirates.
Source: Telegram
Ranked: Telegram Is the 8th Most Used Social Media Platform Worldwide
According to Kepios analysis, Telegram is the 8th most used social media platform worldwide by active user figures, with 800 million active users worldwide.
Source: DataReportal
Telegram Gender Demographics
Telegram’s user base consists of 42% female users and 58% male users.
Source: DataReportal
Telegram Popularity in Select Countries
Here’s the ranking of the Telegram app in the iOS App Store under the “social networking” category by country:
| Country | Rank in country among social networking apps |
|---|---|
| Australia | 5 |
| Brazil | 4 |
| Germany | 3 |
| India | 4 |
| Malaysia | 4 |
| Netherlands | 3 |
| Russia | 2 |
| United Kingdom | 3 |
| United States | 4 |
Source: SimilarWeb
Telegram Users in Russia
As of January 2023, Telegram had 48.8 million daily active users in Russia (up from 25.5 million daily active users in January 2022), reaching 40% of internet users in the country.
Despite its massive reach in the country, WhatsApp ranked first in Russia by number of daily active users – 76 million people.
Telegram app has been downloaded 34.4 million in 2022 alone, which ranks 2nd worldwide (after India) and one of the core markets for Telegram.
Telegram Users in India
Telegram downloads in India hit 104.4 million times in 2022 alone and ranked as the leading market by downloads. Between January and April 2022, Telegram had almost 87 million monthly active users in India.
Sources: Statista 1, Statista 2
Telegram Users in Indonesia
Telegram downloads in Indonesia hit 27.21 million times in 2022 alone and ranked as the third leading market by downloads.
Source: Statista
Telegram Users in the US
In the US, Telegram has been downloaded 21.12 million times in the first 9 months of 2023. For comparison, Telegram app downloads hit 25.91 million in 2022 and 21.13 million in 2021.
According to Similarweb Android app estimates, Telegram had 10.89 million monthly active users in the US in 2022.
Sources: Statista, Similarweb
Telegram Availability
In the iOS App Store, The Telegram app is available to download in 175 countries (all countries where the app market operates in).
Android users from 133 countries (out of 141 where Google Play operates) are able to download Telegram from the Play Store.
In the Windows Store, the Telegram app is available in 107 countries (out of 109 countries where Windows Store currently operates).
Source: Appfigures
Conclusion
That’s it for my list of Telegram user stats.
Telegram is one of those apps that shares very limited data. So I did my best to find stats that were scattered among news articles and founder interviews.
Now I would like to hear your thoughts:
Do you think Telegram will continue to grow? Is there anything, in particular, you’d like to see added to this Telegram stats page?
Go ahead and leave a comment below right now.