Messaging app Telegram has reached 950 million active usersand it aims to cross the 1 billion mark this yearthe company’s founder Pavel Durov said on his channel on Monday.
The company is also planning to launch an app store and an in-app browser with support for web3 pages this monthDurov said last week.
In MarchTelegram crossed 900 million users. At that timein an interview with the Financial TimesDurov said that the company aims to be profitable next year.
Telegram seems to be accelerating adoption of web3 tech on its platform. The company has long supported cryptocurrency and blockchain initiativesbut its own efforts to enter the space slowed down after its initial coin offering failed in 2018. In December 2022the company started auctioning usernames on the TON blockchain.
The company has since then focused on helping developers build mini-apps and games that use cryptocurrency for transactions. This yearit started sharing ad revenue with channel owners by handing out Toncoin (a token on the TON blockchain). Earlier this monthTelegram started letting channel owners convert stars to Toncoin to buy ads at discounted rates or trade cryptocurrencies.
HoweverTelegram has long suffered from scams and grifts. Since November 2023scammers have been actively peddling different schemes to steal Toncoins from usersas per a report from Kaspersky. Durov addressed this issue in a message last weeksaying that the company is working to mitigate such scams.
“SoonTelegram will begin displaying the month of registration and principal country for public accounts (similar to Instagram). We will also allow organizations to use their mini apps to issue labels for channelscreating a decentralized marketplace for third-party verification,” he wrote in a message on his channel.
