Telegram app could cross 1b active monthly users within a year

• Telegram may aim for a US listing once the company had reached profitability.

Dubai-based messaging app – Telegram – will cross one billion active monthly users within a year, its founder said.

“We’ll probably cross 1 billion monthly active users within a year now,” Pavel Durov, who fully owns Telegram, told Tucker, according to the video interview posted on Tucker’s account on the X social media platform.

Telegram is one of the most popular social media platforms in Ukraine and Russia.

Almost all major media, government entities and public figures in both Russia and Ukraine operate content channels on Telegram after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The goal of the app, which has now 900 million active users, is to remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics,” Durov said.

The Russia-born entrepreneur said he had fled Russia in 2014 citing government interference in a company he founded.

Telegram’s main rival – Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp, has more than two billion monthly active users.

The Financial Times reported in March that Telegram would likely aim for a US listing once the company had reached profitability.