Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      A history of the decoders made by M-Net and DStv

      30 November 2023

      How South Africa’s banks became bakgat

      30 November 2023

      Putin’s daughter pursues digital plan in push to embrace Africa

      30 November 2023

      MTN slashes prepaid data prices: 200GB for R399

      30 November 2023

      Spar confident worst of ERP disaster now behind it

      30 November 2023
    • World

      ‘Go f… yourself’: Musk lashes out at fleeing advertisers

      30 November 2023

      Microsoft to take non-voting position on OpenAI board

      30 November 2023

      Hackers stole customer support data in Okta breach

      29 November 2023

      Orange withdraws from process to buy into Ethio Telecom

      28 November 2023

      Musk’s X hit by advertiser exodus

      27 November 2023
    • In-depth

      Africa has a feature phone problem

      23 November 2023

      Is your ISP monitoring your online activity?

      10 November 2023

      The real Big Brother Africa

      2 November 2023

      Compared: Starlink prices around the world – including Africa

      30 October 2023

      Africa is booming

      30 October 2023
    • TCS

      TCS+ | OneTrust’s Joseph Byrne: privacy risk management done right

      29 November 2023

      TCS+ | Ricoh – safe and secure role in today’s digital ecosystems

      27 November 2023

      TCS+ | NEC XON on going toe to toe with cybercriminals

      22 November 2023

      TCS | How ShotSpotter is fighting gun crime in Cape Town

      13 November 2023

      TCS+ | SOC-as-a-service: CYBER1 SOC and the future of cybersecurity

      13 November 2023
    • Opinion

      Could Cape Town become Africa’s Silicon Valley?

      14 November 2023

      Chris Kruger: What I learnt in my decades in IT leadership

      6 November 2023

      Ransomware attacks: how South African companies should respond

      6 November 2023

      Fibre providers urged to go ‘nano’ to cut costs

      31 October 2023

      Big banks, take note: PayShap should be free

      20 October 2023
    • Company Hubs
      • 4IRI
      • Africa Data Centres
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Systems Integration
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • CallMiner
      • CoCre8
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • E4
      • Entelect
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • iKhokha
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • LSD Open
      • Maxtec
      • MiRO
      • NEC XON
      • Next DLP
      • Paratus
      • Ricoh
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Velocity Group
      • Videri Digital
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • E-commerce
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Metaverse and gaming
      • Motoring and transport
      • Open-source software
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » In-depth » Telegram and Signal will never match the ubiquity of WhatsApp

    Telegram and Signal will never match the ubiquity of WhatsApp

    By Agency Staff2 September 2021
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    Messaging app Telegram recently joined an exclusive club: It had its one billionth download, becoming one of about a dozen apps in the world to hit the milestone. Too bad that when it comes to mobile messaging, one name still rules them all.

    Facebook-owned WhatsApp, the world’s biggest mobile messenger, has been downloaded onto more than six billion devices, according to Sensor Tower, an app intelligence firm that also tracked Telegram’s numbers, which now look piddling in comparison. Apptopia, another app research firm, estimates that more than half a billion people on Earth use WhatsApp every day. The corresponding figure is about 36 million for Telegram. After eight years of competing with WhatsApp, Telegram looks unlikely to ever catch up in terms of scale.

    In the battle for our attention, Facebook faces an array of credible, growing threats, not least from TikTok. But the company should feel much more secure in messaging thanks to WhatsApp — a smartphone staple so deeply entrenched in daily life that it has become a communication utility for the globe.

    Unlike a typical battle between consumer brands like Pepsi and Coca-Cola, WhatsApp’s growth is not just driven by consumer tastes

    It was harder to see this last January, when WhatsApp controversially updated its privacy settings and prompted millions of people to flock to rivals. Elon Musk told his 42 million Twitter followers to use the encrypted messaging service Signal. Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, said that same month that the flight of WhatsApp users to his app was accelerating. “We may be witnessing the largest digital migration in human history,” he told his channel subscribers, adding that the presidents of Brazil and Turkey were among the new crop of users.

    Social infrastructure

    But this spectacle wasn’t enough to truly threaten Facebook. That’s because unlike a typical battle between consumer brands like Pepsi and Coca-Cola, WhatsApp’s growth is not just driven by consumer tastes. It’s fuelled by the social infrastructure that billions of people have created over more than a decade. Barring any drastic regulatory action, Telegram and Signal will probably find it impossible to supplant WhatsApp.

    WhatsApp’s co-founder Jan Koum was as early as you could be in the world of mobile messaging, partly due to a fluke of timing. He started building WhatsApp in 2009 from his home in Santa Clara, California, initially designing it as a simple service for displaying a friend’s status next to their name, like “At the gym”, or “Battery is low”. That all changed when Apple launched push notifications that year, allowing developers to ping people when they weren’t using an app.

    When Koum’s early users noticed that their statuses were pinging everybody each time they were updated, they started using the new app to ping people with more jokey statuses, like “I woke up late”. Koum watched the statuses change to things like “Hey, how are you?” and realised he had inadvertently created a messaging service.

    WhatsApp’s steady and unstoppable growth since then was a result of other things, too. Koum and co-founder Brian Acton built a resilient infrastructure that allowed the app to run smoothly as it ramped up into tens, and then hundreds of millions of users. The result was a powerful network effect. The phrase, which has been a buzzword in Silicon Valley for years, refers to a system that becomes stronger and more valuable as more people are connected to it.

    Recent numbers demonstrate the resilience of WhatsApp’s network effects. While there was a spike of people using Telegram and Signal every day in January, that growth rate gradually tapered off, particularly for Signal, according to figures from Apptopia. Signal’s daily active users have fallen to about five million, from 13 million at the beginning of the year. In contrast, WhatsApp’s privacy controversy didn’t even dent its usage. Its daily active users grew about 5% to nearly 600 million over the same time period.

    You may have experienced the lure of the network effect yourself. Last January, as my own phone pinged with dozens of contacts signing up to Signal and Telegram, a friend in one WhatsApp group encouraged everyone to join him on Signal while he jumped ship. “I’m moving to Signal for data privacy reasons,” he told us. Half of us obliged, but conversation in the new group he created was non-existent. A few weeks later, the friend quietly joined us back on WhatsApp, where his family and work colleagues had stayed put.

    While there was a spike of people using Telegram and Signal every day in January, that growth rate gradually tapered off

    Doug Levin, a cybersecurity executive based in Washington, DC, also struggled to get people to join him on Signal. He managed to convince one work colleague to download and use the app earlier this year, but they wouldn’t stay on it. “He kept defaulting to texting me,” Levin said.

    A 2015 column posed that people had a choice when it came to using Facebook, and that network effects were overrated. (That’s also related to Facebook’s defence when it comes to antitrust concerns.) With the benefit of hindsight, I disagree. TikTok and YouTube may give us other options for how to spend our screen time, but it’s hard to see another messaging service ever getting big enough to replace WhatsApp.

    When it comes time to answer allegations of market dominance from regulators, Mark Zuckerberg may find it hard to dismiss that.  — By Parmy Olson, (c) 2021 Bloomberg LP

    Now read: WhatsApp for iPad is in development

    Brian Acton Facebook Mark Zuckerberg Signal Telegram top WhatsApp
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleDiscovery orders mandatory vaccination of employees
    Next Article Standard Bank throws down the gauntlet to M-Pesa

    Related Posts

    A history of the decoders made by M-Net and DStv

    30 November 2023

    ‘Go f… yourself’: Musk lashes out at fleeing advertisers

    30 November 2023

    How South Africa’s banks became bakgat

    30 November 2023
    Promoted

    5G home broadband a big opportunity for African operators

    30 November 2023

    DCA, Huawei and WBBA host Africa Fibre Forum 2023

    30 November 2023

    Accelerate innovation with platform engineering

    30 November 2023
    Opinion

    Could Cape Town become Africa’s Silicon Valley?

    14 November 2023

    Chris Kruger: What I learnt in my decades in IT leadership

    6 November 2023

    Ransomware attacks: how South African companies should respond

    6 November 2023

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2023 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.