In January, an incident involving changing WhatsApp user terms prompted users to turn to other encrypted communications software, such as Telegram and Signal.
According to the latest data from Sensor Tower, Telegram became the most downloaded app with 63 million downloads worldwide in January, which is 3,8 times more than the same month last year.
In addition, it has the highest download ratio of non-gaming applications in the world. In January of this year, the number of new Telegram users skyrocketed, making it the most downloaded non-gaming app in the world.
It even beat popular telematics software like Tiktok and Zoom. In terms of user composition, India has the largest number of users at 24%, followed by Indonesia at 10%. Tiktok came in second with nearly 62 million installs.
As for the country of origin of the users, 17% is the Chinese version of Tiktok, namely Douyin, and the second largest is the United States, which accounts for 10% of all users.
Signal also ranked third for the first time in this wave of user exits. WhatsApp, which ranked first among all non-gaming apps in 2019, dropped to fifth place in 2020.
How WhatsApp helped Telegram become the most downloaded app?
This data is also the latest app download statistics since the WhatsApp incident. On January 6 this year, the media reported that WhatsApp had changed its terms of use. It was hoped that users would agree to the application collecting certain information about the user, otherwise its services would be unavailable.
At the time, Sensor Tower estimated that the App Store and Google Play Store had nearly 7,5 million downloads and installs of Signal in just five days before 1/10. It was 43 times more than in the previous week. Telegram claims it had more than 100 million new users in January.
In order to attract general users to participate, Telegram has also added a number of features in the latest editions. These include the ability to import WhatsApp, Line, KokaoTalk communication records including text, videos and documents into private chats or group calls, and delete encrypted messages, groups and call recordings, as well as emoticons, stickers and music playback features.
