A Look At How Telegram Makes Its Money

Telegram is one of the fastest emerging chats apps at the moment. The messaging app comes with lots of features and has received millions of downloads recently. 

Like WhatsApp, Telegram is also an app that is free to download for everyone. Due to this, many people have been wondering how apps like Telegram and WhatsApp make their money if they are free to download and use. 

How is it that the creators and developers of these apps are primarily billionaires when the apps are free to use?

What Is Telegram?

Telegram is an open-source messaging app created by Nikolai Durov and Pavel Durov in 2013. The app uses an end-to-end encryption security feature on calls, chats, and others to keep users private and safe. 

The app now boasts of more than 500 million active users per month. Telegram has its headquarters in In London, England, and the UAE capital of Dubai. 

The app has several features that have endeared it to its users, and some of these features are the ability to lock chats with a passcode, self-destructing media, two-step verification, and many more.

How Does Telegram Make Its Money?

Since Telegram is the fastest-growing chatting app at the moment, we will be looking at how the app makes its revenue. 

So if this topic is something you have been curious about for some time, then here you go. 

You may have noticed that Telegram does not show any form of ads on the app, and this is because the developers think sharing the personal data of its users will go against its privacy-themed ethos. 

Telegram was not created to gain profits in the first place, and the app was designed solely with the privacy of users in mind and not to achieve profits. 

Since its inception in 2013, Telegram has not been enabling to generate much revenue because it was not created solely to generate revenue in the first place. 

Telegram was able to raise about1.8 billion through an Initial Coin Offering (IPO) in 2018. However, the SEC stopped this in 2019, deeming it as unlawful. 

Following this, Telegram was kept operational with money from the pocket of one of the co-founders after he sold shares he owned. However, Telegram has been able to see some growth recently. 

Its service has since been monetized to generate revenue instead of selling ads. The founders announced this on their public Telegram channel. 

Telegram has still not been able to make any significant revenues, and the company does not profit from the application or its services. 

This is due to the founders’ belief in providing a safe, fast, and secure platform for chatting. The company had not made any revenue since 2013, when it was initially founded.

Conclusion

Telegram is an app that was not created to generate profits. Telegram promotes or anything similar to their profile, and the app has not been able to make any profits.

You might also want to check out how Instagram makes money, and WhatsApp makes money.