Telegram Premium has garnered more than 1 million subscribers less than six months after the popular instant messaging app launched its paid offering and began a serious concerted effort to monetize the company.
Pavel Durov shared the update on his Telegram channel on Tuesday, calling the milestone “one of the most successful social media subscription examples ever launched.”
However, the subscription still represents “only a fraction of Telegram’s total revenue,” he shared in the same update, optimistically hoping Premium will one day bring in as much money as ads.
The app, used by more than 700 million monthly active users, launched Premium at the end of June and offers customers a range of additional features, such as the ability to send files up to 4 GB and faster downloads. The monthly subscription costs about $6 in the US and UK and $2.2 in emerging markets like India.
The Dubai-based company plans to expand its monetization efforts by developing a host of decentralized tools, including non-custodial wallets and exchanges, Durov said late last month.
“Successful monetization allows Telegram to afford the servers, traffic, and wages needed to continue building new features and supporting existing ones. While some other apps view their users as a tool to maximize revenue, we view revenue as a tool to maximize value for our users,” he wrote Tuesday.
(More to follow.)