Telegram now has more than 100 million active monthly users

Back in March 2014, Telegram announced that it is now home to more than 35 monthly active users, which means that the app has nearly tripled its user base in a couple of years.

According to Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, users across 200 countries turn to Telegram to send more than 15 billion messages every day. Furthermore, Durov announced that the instant messaging service is adding 350,000 new users per day.

Notable as Telegram's growth may be, the IM service is nowhere near the popularity of its Facebook-owned rivals. WhatsApp, the world's most popular IM service, recently announced that it passed the 1 billion MAU milestone while Facebook Messenger is currently boasting north of 800 million MAUs. Nevertheless, for an IM service which remains independent, 100 million MAUs is still an impressive user base.

The main reason why Telegram is the go-to app for more than 100 million users each month is the security-minded approach that the app brings to IM market. To many, the best feature about Telegram is called 'Secret Chats' and allows chat participants to delete messages or schedule self-destruct timers. Furthermore, communications are encrypted end-to-end, and the Telegram servers use the ultra-secure MTProto protocol.

A couple of weeks ago, a major update brought several new features to Telegram, such as enhanced privacy controls, hotkey support, a new photo editor, sharing extensions, as well as a gyroscope-based feature that allows you to drop or record voice messages by lifting your phone.