Telegram trumps Signal and WhatsApp to become the most downloaded app on Google Play Store

As WhatsApp struggles with its controversial privacy policies, it has led to a massive drop in its user base. Tapping on this, messaging platforms like Signal and Telegram have seen huge downloads in the last few months. 

According to the recently released data from Sensor Tower, Telegram has become the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide in January 2021, with 24 percent of the total downloads coming from India, followed by Indonesia at 10 percent. Last month, the messaging app was downloaded 63 million times (which means India saw around 15 million new Telegram users in January, going by the percentage given), 3.8 times its downloads in January 2020. 

While TikTok came in a close second followed by Signal and Facebook, WhatsApp slid to the fifth position from its earlier third place, in January.

The Telegram was ranked at ninth position in terms of downloads on Google Play in the month of December. The app has also managed to enter the top-five downloads on the Apple App Store.

“Telegram has attained the top position in the overall downloads (non-game) on Google Play Store moving from ninth position in the previous month, December 2020. The social messenger has also entered the list of top 10 most downloaded (non-game) apps on App Store, directly gaining the fourth position,” the Sensor Tower report said.

In order to bring more users to its platform, the messaging app has also made it easy to migrate your chat history from WhatsApp to Telegram so that you don’t lose out on anything important. WhatsApp recently got embroiled in a huge controversy after it released its much-debated privacy policies that drew huge criticisms from netizens.