By
Tolu Ajiboye
April 19th, 2024
Telegram, one of the most functional messaging apps around, has hit 700 million active users, a milestone that showcases the growing popularity of the free social media app.
According to Telegram, the recorded number of active users was driven only by personal recommendations as it has no ad campaign in which it advertises its app. That the organic growth of the app has seen a good trajectory for almost a decade is impressive, however, to drive sustainability, the social media giant has decided to finally unveil its premium services.
“As Telegram keeps growing at rocket speed, many users have expressed their will to support our team. Today we’re launching Telegram Premium – a subscription that lets you support Telegram’s continued development and gives you access to exclusive additional features,” Telegram said in a blog post. “This will allow us to offer all the resource-heavy features users have asked for over the years, while preserving free access to the most powerful messenger on the planet.”
Overview of the Telegram Premium Services Features
The features that come with the Telegram Premium Services are numerous, and it is all geared to give the subscribers additional value for their money. Some of these features include doubled limits, 4 GB file uploads, faster downloads, exclusive stickers and reactions, improved chat management, and voice to text kind of transcription.
The double limit feature is designed such that premium subscribers can get double access to all of the features accessible on the app. With this new upgrade, users can follow up to 1000 channels as against the regular 500, create up to 20 chat folders with up to 200 chats each, add a fourth account to any Telegram app, pin 10 chats in the main list instead of 5 and save up to 10 favorite stickers.
Telegram users that do not subscribe to the premium service will still have access to upload up to 2 GB in file size, however, premium users can upload up to 4 GB. This implies that engaging with larger files as a premium user will not be much of a big deal. Downloads are also faster for premium subscribers and as the platform said, the only impediment may be the user’s own network speed.
Known as an application with highly sophisticated sticker reactions, the premium service is even more improved as these reactions have been modified to occupy the user’s full screen. The user performance is also enhanced to reflect a more flexible chat management system in which users can easily shift any chat folder to become the default when the app is opened. There is also a new chat preview feature that will make users read newly received messages while not making it show as though they have already been read.
Supporting Telegram for More
Those who subscribe to the Telegram premium service will undoubtedly be getting more value across the board as there will be a premium user badge attached to each user’s name and which will be visible to all.
While Telegram is somewhat silent on the pricing for this new premium feature, it added that the funds will not only be used to roll out good features for subscribers but also for those using the app for free. With the launch of the premium service and all that comes with it, Telegram said it will further its model of focusing on its users, rather than advertisers to keep the platform functional.
The new premium will serve as a dynamic funding source for the firm which pulled $1 billion in the first quarter of 2021. The firm still has plans to take the platform public, a move that may now be considered now that it has an active revenue source.