Business

Telegram Adds 70M Users During WhatsApp 6 Hour Outage

Manish Singh (TechCrunch)/

Facebook’s hours-long outage on Monday may have hurt the company, its founder, shareholders and many businesses that rely on the social juggernaut’s services. But for its instant messaging rivals, it was a very good day.

Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov said on Tuesday that his instant messaging app added a staggering 70 million users yesterday in what he described as a “record increase in user registration and activity” for the service.

“I am proud of how our team handled the unprecedented growth because Telegram continued to work flawlessly for the vast majority of our users,” wrote Durov on his Telegram channel. But the day wasn’t so flawless.

“That said, some users in the Americas may have experienced slower speed than usual as millions of users from these continents rushed to sign up for Telegram at the same time,” he added.

Telegram, which recently topped 1 billion downloads, had 500 million monthly active users as of early this year.

Signal, which competes with both Telegram and WhatsApp, also added new users. It said yesterday in a tweet that “millions of new users” had joined the app.

This isn’t the first time Telegram and Signal have gained at the expense of their chief rival. The two added millions of users earlier this year as well when WhatsApp was struggling to explain exactly what its new privacy policy entailed.

0
Editor

Recent Posts

Are The Grammys Relevant Outside the United States?

Building Credibility For nearly eight decades, the Grammy Awards have stood as the pinnacle of…

11 hours ago

Disputed 5.3bn Shares: Court Adjourns Barbican/FBN Holdings Suit as Ecobank’s Recusal Motion Remains Pending

Justice Ayokunle Faji has adjourned further proceedings in the suit filed by Barbican Capital Limited…

2 days ago

Los Angeles Protects Undocumented Immigrants from Trump’s Deportation Plans with Sanctuary Ordinance

Segun Atanda/ The Los Angeles City Council has approved a sweeping "sanctuary city" ordinance designed…

2 days ago

Trump Could Face Prison After Second Term, Prosecutors Say

Segun Atanda/ New York prosecutors have opposed dismissing President-elect Donald Trump’s conviction for falsifying business…

2 days ago

MC Oluomo Flouts Court Order, Assumes Office as NURTW President

Femi Ashekun/ In a bold and controversial move, Musiliu ‘MC Oluomo’ Akinsanya, has defied a…

2 days ago

Tinubu Sacks Nnamdi Azikiwe University VC, Registrar … Dissolves Council

Matilda Omonaiye/ President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has dissolved the Governing Council of Nnamdi Azikiwe University,…

2 days ago