Telegram Premium, the paid subscription from encrypted messaging platform Telegram founded by Pavel Durov has crossed 1 million subscribers, the company announced on Wednesday. This comes almost 6 months after Telegram started taking monetisation seriously and launched the paid subscription service.
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The cross-platform, encrypted and cloud-based messaging platform currently has more than 700 million monthly active users (MAUs). Telegram Premium subscription costs about Rs 180 in emerging markets such as India and it costs between $5-$6 in most other markets.
"While it still represents just a fraction of Telegram’s overall revenue, Telegram Premium is growing steadily every day, and one day may even rival our ads," Pavel Durov, Telegram Founder, said in a statement.
Telegram Premium allows anyone to acquire additional features, speed and resources. Other special features include creating up to 20 chat folders with 200 chats in each, adding up to 4 accounts in the app and pinning up to 10 chats.
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"Unlike other apps, we took a privacy-conscious approach to ads: we decided that no personal data should be used for targeting and that promoted messages should only be shown in public one-to-many channels. Despite that, our ads have significantly outperformed the market and put Telegram on a steady path towards financial sustainability," Durov added.
Telegram Premium, which was introduced almost 5 months ago has surpassed 1 million subscribers and "has become one of the most successful examples of a social media subscription plan ever launched".
"Thanks to successful monetisation, Telegram will be able to pay for the servers, traffic and wages necessary to keep building new features and supporting existing ones. While some other apps consider their users a tool to maximise revenue, we consider revenue a tool to maximise value for our users," the Telegram founder added.