Telegram Messenger, the mobile messaging app created by VK.com co-founders Nikolai and Pavel Durov, today announced a new milestone via Twitter.
The app has surpassed 35 million monthly active users. While this may pale in comparison to WhatsApp’s over 150 million and WeChat’s 355 million active users, it’s nevertheless an impressive milestone, especially considering Telegram only had 100,000 daily active users last October. Like LINE’s sudden burst of users, much of this growth for Telegram was seen after the announced acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook; nearly 5 million downloads of Telegram occurred in a single day.
Telegram has crossed a new mark – 35 million users.
— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) March 24, 2014
Telegram is currently available for iOS and Android, but also has a large number of “unofficial” apps available for other platforms, including Linux, Mac, and Windows. As of this writing, there are four unofficial Telegram apps available for Windows Phone. Unlike most messaging apps on the market, Telegram has an open API and protocol that’s free for everyone.