Telegram fast eating into WhatsApp user base in India: Survey

New Delhi: The trend of multiple messaging app usage is picking up in India and Telegram is the frontrunner, having wooed a massive 42.9 per cent new users from WhatsApp in the past three years, a new survey said on Wednesday.

Although WhatsApp is currently the messaging leader with more than 53 per cent users in the country using its platform, Telegram has wooed most of its users, followed by Signal which also gained 47 per cent of WhatsApp users in the past one year owing to their extra security offerings, according to market research firm techARC.

In the case of upcoming WhatsApp data privacy policy from May 15, the Union Ministry of Electronics and IT has asked the messaging platform to withdraw, not defer, the recent change. In its letter to WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart, the ministry slammed the platform’s “all or nothing” approach.