6 ms·

Telegram hits 900M users and nears profitability as founder considers IPO

13 points by fwn 3y ago

cranberryturkey 3y ago
how does telegram make money?
- fwn 3y ago
  According to the article, it apparently comes from advertising and subscriptions: > Pavel Durov told the Financial Times that Dubai-based Telegram had grown to become one of the world’s most popular social media apps while making “hundreds of millions of dollars” in revenues after introducing advertising and premium subscription services two years ago.
  - cranberryturkey 3y ago
    i've never seen one ad.
    - looping8 3y ago
      I read they only showed ads in a few countries as a test and now plan to expand. They also said they'll share the money from ads with channel owners, since ads are only shown in public channels. No idea which countries will be included, though, wonder if the EU will get them.
    - j0hnyl 3y ago
      There are entire ad networks built around in-post advertisements that appear in Telegram channels. They look and feel highly "native", you might not even notice that they are ads.
- ansgri 3y ago
  They have a nice Premium subscription.
  - Arnt 3y ago
    What makes it nice?
- AnonC 3y ago
  - Telegram Premium subscriptions (5 million users as of January 2024 [1]) - Ads (non-targeted/non-user-profiling) in Telegram channels - now there’s some store/merchant features being added [1]: https://t.me/rove/244 https://t.me/rove/244
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
karmakurtisaani 3y ago
Looks like it's just a matter of time when I have to find an alternative then. Making a good service for the users and turning profit for shareholders are typically mutually exclusive goals.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  The Durov's may be benevolent owners, but Telegram also has a bunch of VC firms as owners. They are shareholders with seats on the board who want a payout, even if they don't IPO.
  - karmakurtisaani 3y ago
    That's true. With VC funding there's usually some grace period for users before the milking begins, usually in the form of an IPO.
- Arnt 3y ago
  It depends on how much of the income comes from the users. Remember that 100% of the profit for the shareholders comes from the income, so the profit depends on keeping the payers happy.
  - karmakurtisaani 3y ago
    I suppose so if the paid subscriptions turn out to be popular enough. Otherwise the revenue will have to come from advertisements and other user unfriendly sources.
- pndy 3y ago
  At the moment it isn't bad - the subscription ad bar shows once per year I believe. But locking voice messages in privacy settings behind paywall isn't nice. It seems they also locked text messages from everyone behind premium quite recently because I'm pretty sure you could set it up to contacts only without paying. Now it's "contacts and premium users"; so basically "you can get spam from unknown contacts unless you pay us for the feature". I guess they'll start locking more features soon. 150PLN/~35€ per year isn't something I'd pay for an messenger app. As for alternatives, I'm looking back at Signal which was installed by few friends of mine already but they were rather experimenting with it than becoming active users. There's Session, SimpleX which both look quite interesting, and of course there's Matrix but none interested anyone from my circles and I doubt it would do. They're singing "I won't install another app on my phone" and "Messenger is enough for me, why I would install that" tunes.
yla92 3y ago
Non-paywall link : https://archive.is/2024.03.11-120810/https://www.ft.com/content/8d6ceb0d-4cdb-4165-bdfa-4b95b3e07b2a https://archive.is/2024.03.11-120810/https://www.ft.com/cont...
AnonC 3y ago
> the company, which only has about 50 full-time employees I’ve not seen a company of this size (in this space) really add features at the pace Telegram has been doing for several years. Except for the lack of end-to-end encryption in personal chats by default (and the lack of E2EE for group chats altogether), it’s a fantastic platform for chat. No other platform comes close to it on features and speed. The rest of them have been and continue to be years behind.
- aeurielesn 3y ago
  What do you mean by no E2EE in personal chats?
  - pndy 3y ago
    By default there's no encryption and in order to have an encrypted chat you need to initialize it manually from the contact menu and IIRC it's not available on desktop - you won't initialize it from PC nor it will be synchronized with
    - danlugo92 3y ago
      It's available for desktop MacOS FWIW
  - AnonC 3y ago
    GP here. I said by default it’s not there. There’s the “secret chats” feature that is E2EE, but it has to be explicitly chosen by the user. The default chats are stored on Telegram’s servers in a way Telegram can decrypt those. Secret chats are also tied to a single device. There is no “secret chat”/E2EE available for group chats, unlike in Signal.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
If archive.is is blocked: https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=3250518537142&w=zCpkkmVASoB0djoD1R4z7vdl6poTKhRZ https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=3250518537142&w=zCpkkmVASo...

13 points by fwn 3y ago

cranberryturkey 3y ago

how does telegram make money?

fwn 3y ago
According to the article, it apparently comes from advertising and subscriptions: > Pavel Durov told the Financial Times that Dubai-based Telegram had grown to become one of the world’s most popular social media apps while making “hundreds of millions of dollars” in revenues after introducing advertising and premium subscription services two years ago.
- cranberryturkey 3y ago
  i've never seen one ad.
  - looping8 3y ago
    I read they only showed ads in a few countries as a test and now plan to expand. They also said they'll share the money from ads with channel owners, since ads are only shown in public channels. No idea which countries will be included, though, wonder if the EU will get them.
  - j0hnyl 3y ago
    There are entire ad networks built around in-post advertisements that appear in Telegram channels. They look and feel highly "native", you might not even notice that they are ads.
ansgri 3y ago
They have a nice Premium subscription.
- Arnt 3y ago
  What makes it nice?
AnonC 3y ago
- Telegram Premium subscriptions (5 million users as of January 2024 [1]) - Ads (non-targeted/non-user-profiling) in Telegram channels - now there’s some store/merchant features being added [1]: https://t.me/rove/244 https://t.me/rove/244

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

karmakurtisaani 3y ago

Looks like it's just a matter of time when I have to find an alternative then. Making a good service for the users and turning profit for shareholders are typically mutually exclusive goals.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
The Durov's may be benevolent owners, but Telegram also has a bunch of VC firms as owners. They are shareholders with seats on the board who want a payout, even if they don't IPO.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  That's true. With VC funding there's usually some grace period for users before the milking begins, usually in the form of an IPO.
Arnt 3y ago
It depends on how much of the income comes from the users. Remember that 100% of the profit for the shareholders comes from the income, so the profit depends on keeping the payers happy.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  I suppose so if the paid subscriptions turn out to be popular enough. Otherwise the revenue will have to come from advertisements and other user unfriendly sources.
pndy 3y ago
At the moment it isn't bad - the subscription ad bar shows once per year I believe. But locking voice messages in privacy settings behind paywall isn't nice. It seems they also locked text messages from everyone behind premium quite recently because I'm pretty sure you could set it up to contacts only without paying. Now it's "contacts and premium users"; so basically "you can get spam from unknown contacts unless you pay us for the feature". I guess they'll start locking more features soon. 150PLN/~35€ per year isn't something I'd pay for an messenger app. As for alternatives, I'm looking back at Signal which was installed by few friends of mine already but they were rather experimenting with it than becoming active users. There's Session, SimpleX which both look quite interesting, and of course there's Matrix but none interested anyone from my circles and I doubt it would do. They're singing "I won't install another app on my phone" and "Messenger is enough for me, why I would install that" tunes.

yla92 3y ago

Non-paywall link : https://archive.is/2024.03.11-120810/https://www.ft.com/content/8d6ceb0d-4cdb-4165-bdfa-4b95b3e07b2a https://archive.is/2024.03.11-120810/https://www.ft.com/cont...

AnonC 3y ago

> the company, which only has about 50 full-time employees I’ve not seen a company of this size (in this space) really add features at the pace Telegram has been doing for several years. Except for the lack of end-to-end encryption in personal chats by default (and the lack of E2EE for group chats altogether), it’s a fantastic platform for chat. No other platform comes close to it on features and speed. The rest of them have been and continue to be years behind.

aeurielesn 3y ago
What do you mean by no E2EE in personal chats?
- pndy 3y ago
  By default there's no encryption and in order to have an encrypted chat you need to initialize it manually from the contact menu and IIRC it's not available on desktop - you won't initialize it from PC nor it will be synchronized with
  - danlugo92 3y ago
    It's available for desktop MacOS FWIW
- AnonC 3y ago
  GP here. I said by default it’s not there. There’s the “secret chats” feature that is E2EE, but it has to be explicitly chosen by the user. The default chats are stored on Telegram’s servers in a way Telegram can decrypt those. Secret chats are also tied to a single device. There is no “secret chat”/E2EE available for group chats, unlike in Signal.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

If archive.is is blocked: https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=3250518537142&w=zCpkkmVASoB0djoD1R4z7vdl6poTKhRZ https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=3250518537142&w=zCpkkmVASo...