Telegram to Monetize App as it nears 500 million users

 As Telegram Instant messaging App is fast approaching the 500 million user mark, plans are in top gear to upscale through revenue generation from the App as from the beginning of 2021 in order to keep the business alive.

This declaration was made by its founder Pavel Durov. Durov said he has personally managed the finances of the business for the past seven years but there came the need to upscale through monetization of the Instant messaging service

The service, which topped 400 million active users in April this year, will introduce its own ad platform for public one-to-many channels — one that is user-friendly, respects privacy, and allows us to cover the costs of server and traffic.

“If we monetize large public one-to-many channels via the Ad Platform, the owners of these channels will receive free traffic in proportion to their size,” he wrote.

He also highlighted that Telegram is looking to generate income through premium stickers and other expressive features that will engender more user experience. According to him, Telegram wants millions of Telegram-based creators and small businesses will thrive through this decision.

For this project, the company had raised $1.7 billion from investors in 2018. It had planned to distribute its token, called grams, after developing the blockchain software. Telegram offered to return $1.2 billion to investors earlier this year.

“The App has a social networking dimension. Our massive public one-to-many channels can have millions of subscribers each and are more like Twitter feeds. In many markets the owners of such channels display ads to earn money, sometimes using third-party ad platforms.

The ads they post look like regular messages and are often intrusive. We will fix this by introducing our own Ad Platform for public one-to-many channels,” Durov wrote.

All existing features will remain free, said Durov, who is one of the biggest critics of Facebook-owned WhatsApp, adding  that Telegram is committed to not introduce ads in private one-to-one chats or group chats because they are a “bad idea.”

“We are not going to sell the company like the founders of WhatsApp. The world needs Telegram to stay independent as a place where users are respected and high-quality service is ensured,” he said.

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