Pavel Durov, the creator and CEO of the encrypted messaging service Telegram, announced on Monday that the company had made a profit for the first time in 2024, with yearly sales of more than $1 billion.
“As I predicted, 2024 turned out to be a very good year for Telegram. For the first time in its 3-year history of monetisation, Telegram became profitable,” Durov announced on his Telegram channel.
In 2021, the messaging service, which claims to have over 950 million users globally, started charging for subscriptions and displaying advertisements.
According to Durov, the action tripled the number of users of the app’s premium service to 12 million, and helped the company generate sales of over $1 billion.
Telegram, a company based in Dubai, had cash reserves of about $500 million, excluding bitcoin holdings. To go along with Durov’s allegation, the corporation didn’t seem to have released any yearly accounts.
The Russian-born Durov was detained in France in August and and charged with failing to curb extremist and illegal content on Telegram.
Durov, who has French citizenship, was released under strict bail conditions, including reporting to a police station twice a week and not leaving French territory.
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