Telegram overtook Yandex, VK and WhatsApp in terms of audience growth

For comparison: during the same period, VKontakte added almost 2 million users and the audience reached 56 million people. The social network became the fifth most visited platform in Russia, WhatsApp took first place, Yandex second, Google third and Telegram fourth.

The sixth position was occupied by YouTube, its audience decreased by 5 million users, rising to 47 million. Sber remained in seventh place, like last year. Wildberries rose from tenth to eighth place, while TikTok fell from eighth to ninth. Closes the top ten “Zen”, having lost almost 2 million users in a year, now its audience is 28 million people, according to Mediascope.

The growth of Telegram’s audience is due to the active development of the service, TelecomDaily CEO Denis Kuskov told Izvestia. He expects this trend to continue until the end of 2024. The source of the publication on the media market linked the growth of VKontakte’s audience with the development of video formats and the improvement of the recommendation system.

Stingray Technologies CEO Yuri Shabalin attributed the decline in interest in YouTube to the platform’s slowdown in Russia and users’ transition to other video hosting sites, such as Rutube and VK Video. Deputy Anton Gorelkin noted that within a year, 5 million Russians got rid of the habit of visiting YouTube every day.

• In July, Rostelecom warned that YouTube was slowing down due to Google’s outdated hardware, but the company said it was not involved in the problems. In August, operators began to use solutions to overcome the slowdown, but Roskomnadzor demanded that the use of traffic distortion technologies be excluded. In September, providers turned to the Federal Antimonopoly Service with a complaint of discrimination due to the uneven slowdown of YouTube. In October, Kommersant sources reported that YouTube was blocking the transfer of videos to Russian platforms such as Rutube and VK Video.

• The Financial Times, citing reports from Telegram, wrote in August that in 2023, Telegram’s revenue reached $342 million with operating losses of $108 million. Total after-tax losses amounted to about $173 million.