Telegram Mobile Messaging App Tops 100 Million Monthly Active Users: 60 Percent Growth In 9 Months

Telegram recently revealed that its mobile messaging app topped 100 million monthly active users (MAUs).

Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, announced the breakthrough in a keynote at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

Durov broke down the figure and explained that about 38 million users joined the app since May 2015. He went on to add that a number of 350,000 new users sign in to the app every day. The 100 million total users of Telegram are sending approximately 15 billion messages daily, an increase of 25 percent over the 12 billion registered in September 2015.

The company has users in 200 countries.

Telegram might have obtained a growth of 60 percent in only nine months, but rival names in the tech industry play by bigger numbers.

WhatsApp scored 900 million MAUs in September last year, to the delight of Facebook, its parent company. Facebook Messenger itself nears that figure, meaning that Telegram is pitted against strong competition. It should be mentioned that Telegram is only three years old and, as an indie company, 100 million MAUs is a commendable achievement.

"We're extremely proud and happy that all this growth is 100 percent organic - we had zero marketing budget," Durov says.

Telegram started its activity in 2013, under the supervision of Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov, his brother.

Since then, Telegram strengthened its reputation in the crowded scene of chat apps. One reason for this is that the software uses thorough encryption. The servers hosting Telegram use MTProto protocol, and the app features a "secret chat" option that allows users to get rid of unwanted messages in a timely fashion.

Another factor that contributed to Telegram's surging appeal was that WhatsApp was purchased by Facebook in 2014. This caused quite a number of users to renounce WhatsApp and choose the independent company's solution.

Brazil temporarily blocked WhatsApp in December 2015, which was great news for Telegram. The app registered 1 million downloads in 24 hours in the country.

Earlier this month, Telegram pushed a number of cool new features, such as support for hotkeys, the capability to record and listen to voice messages by lifting the handset, a new image editor and improved privacy controls.