WhatsApp rival Telegram’s services to get paid in 2021, messaging to remain free, Telegram to monetize its platform in 2021 in order to offer more features and a better experience to the users.
Telegram is set to launch pay-for services in 2021. The announcement was made last week by Telegram founder Pavel Durov. He claims that the growing company needed "at least a few hundred million dollars per year". Durov further added that he is not planning to sell the company, thus looking for other ways to come up with funding.
In his statement, Durov said, "Telegram will begin to generate revenue, starting next year." He further added, "We will be able to launch countless new features and welcome billions of new users."
Durov claims that he has been running the company using his personal savings. However, in order to grow further and bring billions of users onboard, the founder has to look for ways to bring funding. As he is not interested in selling the whole company or parts of it, he has to look towards Telegram users for the funding.
Telegram has gained immense popularity in the past few years. The platform is not only being used for personal chats, but various companies are also using it. The application has attracted nearly 500 million users since its launch.
Durov is looking to monetize large public one-to-many channels. Through the Ad Platform, the owners of these channels will also receive free traffic in proportion to their size. Telegram could also get premium stickers with “additional expressive features" in the near future and it will become a part of the company’s revenue generation.
Also Read: WhatsApp vs Telegram: Which app deserves a spot on your Android or iPhone
In order to make it a fair deal for the customers, Telegram will also share a part of the profit made from these premium stickers with the artists who design them.
The Telegram founder has also made it clear that the parts of the app devoted to messaging will remain ad-free. Also, the features that are currently free will remain free. They will be monetizing the features they introduce in future to help business teams or power users.
