Telegram marks over 1 billion installs on Google Play Store after recent Facebook outage

Telegram has become the latest app to surpass one billion installs on the Google Play Store. The sudden surge in downloads could be attributed to severe disruptions to Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram earlier this month. Founded by Pavel Durov, Telegram is slowly increasing its presence in the market and has gained more users due to the disruption of its competitors in the space. All Facebook-owned apps were inaccessible for several hours due to the October 4 configuration changes, prompting many users to switch to Telegram.

The Telegram application has now passed the milestone of one billion downloads on Google Play, it displays the installation counter. He was first spotted by Android police. Earlier, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said the app gained more than 70 million new users during Facebook's October 4 hiatus. “Telegram's daily growth rate has exceeded the norm by an order of magnitude. Durov wrote on his Telegram channel.

In August, Telegram surpassed the milestone of one billion downloads worldwide, according to data from Sensor Tower. Other apps on the list included WhatsApp, as well as Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify, and Netflix. Sensor Tower data also showed India has emerged as Telegram's largest internet market, with around 22% of its lifetime installations. Russia and Indonesia were the two key markets for the application after India, from which it received 10% and 8% of its total installations, respectively. Telegram also grew by 214.7 million installs in the first half of 2021. That means 61% year-over-year growth, up from 133 million during the same period in 2020, Sensor Tower said.