Telegram Reaches 950M Users, Announces Plans for App Store

Messaging app Telegram has reached 950 million active users and aims to surpass the 1 billion mark this year, company founder Pavel Durov said on his channel on Monday.

The company plans to launch an app store and in-app browser that will support Web3 sites this month, Durov said last week.

In March, Telegram’s user base surpassed 900 million. At the time, Durov said in an interview with the Financial Times that the company hopes to be profitable next year.

Telegram appears to be accelerating the adoption of Web3 technologies on its platform. The company has supported cryptocurrency and blockchain efforts for years, but its own efforts to enter the space slowed following the failure of its initial coin offering in 2018. In December 2022, the company began auctioning usernames on the TON blockchain.

Since then, the company has focused on helping developers create mini-apps and games that use cryptocurrency for transactions. This year, it began issuing Toncoin (a token on the TON blockchain) to share advertising revenue with channel owners. Earlier this month, Telegram allowed channel owners to exchange stars for Toncoin to buy ads at a discount or to trade cryptocurrencies.

But Telegram has long been plagued by scams and fraud. According to a Kaspersky report, since November 2023, scammers have been actively spreading various schemes to steal Toncoin from users. Durov mentioned the issue in a message last week and said the company is working to curb such scams.

“Soon, Telegram will begin displaying the month of registration and principal country for public accounts (similar to Instagram). We will also allow organizations to use their mini apps to issue labels for channels, creating a decentralized marketplace for third-party verification,” he wrote in a message on his channel.