Telegram Reports First Ever Profit Since Inception... "Subscription and Coin Business Booming"

Paid Subscription Service and Advertising Introduced Since 2021
Estimated 1 Billion Users

Mobile messenger app Telegram has achieved its first profit three years after introducing a monetization model.

Pavel Durov, Telegram founder and CEO, stated on the 23rd (local time) on his Telegram and X (formerly Twitter), "The company's annual revenue has exceeded $1 billion (approximately 1.4 trillion KRW)," adding, "Telegram has been able to turn a profit for the first time in its three-year monetization history."

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Initially, Telegram offered all services for free, but from 2021, it shifted to a monetization model by introducing paid subscription services and advertisements. CEO Durov explained, "This year, the number of Telegram's paid service subscribers surpassed 12 million, tripling compared to the previous year," and through this, Telegram has repaid a significant portion of its $2 billion (approximately 2.9 trillion KRW) debt, successfully turning a profit.

Currently, the estimated number of Telegram users worldwide is about 1 billion. Among them, 12 million paid subscribers pay $5 per month for additional features. Notably, about half of this year's revenue reportedly came from advertisements by major brands such as Samsung. Telegram plans to expand advertising on public channels that record over 1 trillion monthly views. Earlier this year, Telegram's corporate value was estimated at over $30 billion (approximately 44 trillion KRW).

Telegram's self-developed cryptocurrency business is also believed to have contributed to the profit turnaround. According to sources cited by The New York Times (NYT), Telegram sold digital assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars this year, including the cryptocurrency Toncoin. Previously, a major British foreign media outlet reported that Telegram's digital asset size, which was about $400 million (approximately 580 billion KRW) at the end of last year, surged more than threefold to $1.3 billion (approximately 1.888 trillion KRW) in the first half of this year.

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Since its launch in 2013, Telegram has attracted hundreds of millions of users worldwide by emphasizing strict anonymity and confidentiality, but it has also been labeled a "lawless paradise" as a hotbed for crimes such as online sexual offenses and drug trafficking. In August, CEO Durov was arrested by French authorities on charges of complicity and aiding these crimes and was even subject to a preliminary indictment. He avoided imprisonment through bail but is currently banned from leaving the country.

CEO Durov argued that the French authorities' arrest of him was a misguided approach but acknowledged public criticism regarding the misuse of Telegram for criminal activities. He expressed his intention to block problematic content and cooperate with criminal investigations in various countries.