In just five months, Telegram Premium has surpassed one million subscribers, so says CEO and founder Pavel Durov on his Telegram channel.
Telegram Premium is a subscription plan (priced at $4.99) that allows anyone to acquire additional features, speed and resources. It also allow users to support Telegram and join the club that receives new features first.
Pavel says that even though the revenue from Telegram premium still represents just a fraction of Telegram’s overall revenue, the number of subscribers is growing steadily every day.
“Thanks to successful monetization, Telegram will be able to pay for the servers, traffic and wages necessary to keep building new features and supporting existing ones. While some other apps consider their users a tool to maximize revenue, we consider revenue a tool to maximize value for our users.”
In a related monetization story, Telegram is now putting blockchain-based anonymous numbers for bidding. These numbers can be used to sign for Telegram without needing any SIM card.
However, you will have to buy the anonymous number from a decentralised auction platform called Fragment, founded by Telegram’s creator, Pavel Durov. The platform sells usernames and anonymous numbers which are only compatible with the Telegram app and web service. Also, purchases made on Fragment will be via Telegram’s official Token, The Open Network (TON).
There are reports that, some of these premium virtual numbers — such as +888-8-888 — are selling for 31,500 toncoins (~$58,200). However you can also buy a random number for as low as 9 toncoins (about $16)
You can use this number to sign up for Telegram but you cannot receive SMS or calls.
As Telegram is looking at ways to generating revenue, its rival WhatsApp has not started. I wonder why
