When WhatsApp went down for four hours this weekend, nearly 5 million people signed up for messaging service Telegram. The app skyrocketed to the top of the App Store charts, and is now the top free app in 46 countries from Germany to Ecuador. In the US and several other countries, the app is no. 1 in the social networking category, ahead of Facebook, WhatsApp, Kik, and others.
Its not immediately clear why Telegram emerged as the alternative of choice following WhatsApps downtime. Users could have switched to Kik, or Facebook Messenger, or LINE all of which have hundreds of millions of users. Theres seemingly something different about Telegram. Its rise isnt only due to WhatsApps acquisition and subsequent downtime. "We have been the no. 1 app in Spanish, Arabic, and several Latin American app stores for several weeks before the Facebook deal happened," says Telegram's Markus Ra. "The growth was there so the WhatsApp acquisition and problems merely multiplied the effect across all affected countries." According to app analytics site App Annie, Telegram started truly gaining steam on February 17th, days before the WhatsApp news even hit.
Its not immediately clear why Telegram emerged as the alternative of choice following WhatsApps downtime. Users could have switched to Kik, or Facebook Messenger, or LINE all of which have hundreds of millions of users. Theres seemingly something different about Telegram. Its rise isnt only due to WhatsApps acquisition and subsequent downtime. "We have been the no. 1 app in Spanish, Arabic, and several Latin American app stores for several weeks before the Facebook deal happened," says Telegram's Markus Ra. "The growth was there so the WhatsApp acquisition and problems merely multiplied the effect across all affected countries." According to app analytics site App Annie, Telegram started truly gaining steam on February 17th, days before the WhatsApp news even hit.