Telegram’s New Premium Tier to Expand User
Functionality
Popular
messaging platform Telegram has announced it is launching a new premium tier of
its services as it seeks to monetize a part of its user base. Reaching more
than 700 million active users monthly, the new tier answers the needs of users looking for more bandwidth and storage capacity, according to Pavel Durov, CEO of
the company.
Telegram
Introduces Premium Tier Benefits
Telegram,
one of the most popular messaging apps in cryptocurrency circles, has announced
it will introduce a paid premium tier of its services that will allow its users
to access new features and expand upon already available ones. The
move comes as the company looks to monetize
a large section of its user base, which recently reached a milestone of 700 million
monthly active users.
According to CEO Pavel Durov, the premium tier is an answer to the
requirements of a set of users that wanted to upgrade their bandwidth and
storage from within the app. He stated:
"After giving it some thought, we realised that the only way
to let our most demanding fans get more while keeping our existing features
free is to make those raised limits a paid option."
Among the new features available for paid users is the extension
of the number of channels that they can follow. 1,000, up from the 500 that the
free tier offers, and also the creation of 20 chat folders with 200 chats in
each folder. The pricing for this new service tier has not been disclosed,
but according to Techcrunch, it is estimated to be close to the six-dollar
mark.
The Road to Monetization
This is not the first attempt by Telegram to monetize services on
the platform, which provides messaging and content management systems to
thousands of individuals and companies across the globe. The company
introduced the feature of sponsored messages last year, allowing advertisers to
put messages on large channels with more than 1,000 subscribers.
However,
the biggest attempt at monetization was the launch of Telegram’s own token,
called gram. The initiative managed to gather more than $1 billion from
investors all over the world but was ultimately shut down by the U.S. SEC,
which issued a temporary restraining order against the company back
in 2019. This led Telegram to cancel the launch of the token and to
return the money to investors, also paying a fine to the institution.
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