Telegram

WhatsApp, a messaging platform, has 1.6 billion monthly active users (MAU). There are other players to compete in this space — Telegram and Signal. Telegram is an encrypted service, and has 200 million users globally. It is gaining followers in India. In September 2019, it has 2.9 crore users in India.

Telegram was founded by Russian brothers — Nikolai and Pavel Durov in 2013. Pavel supports it financially and ideologically. Nikolai is the tech driver. Pavel is Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg who founded Facebook-like VKontakte in 2006. Out of this earnings, he invested $250 million into Telegram. In 2016, Telegram hit 100 million monthly active users (MAUs). The App development team is based in Dubai.

Telegram is patromised by small and medium enterprises and startups for marketing and customer engagement. Edtech firms too use it. It is used for influencer marketing. It has unique application programing interface (API). It has channels in its broadcasting with no limits on number of members. WhatsApp supports 256 contacts in each broadcast list. It has a self-destructing messaging feature called secret chats. Telegram offers up to 1 GB of uninterrupted data transfers between the users, whereas WhatsApp file sizes are limited. It can be accessed from any device. SuperGroups can accommodate up to 1 lac users. Telegram groups mask phone numbers of users. WhatsApp lack this feature.

Though the features are high on convenience, there are concerns about piracy especially in content of entertainment and education material. The platform could threaten book-publishing and content companies. The secret chat feature could be abused.