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| Telegram gains 70 million new users in one day |
Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, announced that the messaging app added 70 million new users on Monday due to a Facebook outage for nearly six hours.
The encrypted messaging app Signal also reported that it gained millions of new users on the same day.
These two apps mainly compete with Facebook's WhatsApp. The power outage also disrupted Messenger and prevented users from sending messages via Instagram.
Compared to the platform's 500 million monthly active users in January this year, 70 million new users increased by more than 10%, the last time the platform saw a similar increase.
Coincidentally, the recent increase in user numbers has also benefited from Facebook's problems. In January of this year, WhatsApp mishandled the introduction of the new privacy policy, leading people to fear that users' personal information could be leaked to parent company Facebook.
Although Durov claimed that Telegram continues to operate without any problems due to its unprecedented growth, he admitted that some users in America may feel more than usual as millions of users from these continents want to subscribe to Telegram at the same time. Slow speed.
Signal users also suffer from not being able to see all of their contacts. Durov wrote: For new users, I salute the largest independent messaging platform. If others fail, we will not fail.
Telegram wins new users thanks to WhatsApp
The platform tried to attract two billion WhatsApp users. Earlier this year, the ability to import WhatsApp chat history was added. This step is intended to help users log out of Facebook's messaging service.
Additionally, another feature has been added this year that focuses on video calls and live broadcasts. Although they are different from WhatsApp and Signal, they do not offer end-to-end encryption by default.
Edward Snowden wrote during the power outage, “The WhatsApp outage on Facebook is a reminder to you and your friends that you should use a more private non-profit alternative like Signal. It’s completely free and takes 30 seconds to swap out.” Snowden has always been a Signal champion and in 2015 said he uses it every day.