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Indian users are increasingly engaging with multiple messaging platforms for chatting and sharing, according to a report by techArc.
As per the report, emerging platforms like Telegram and Signal are gaining popularity as alternatives to WhatsApp owing to security and privacy concerns.
Of the users surveyed, 78.6 per cent are WhatsApp users while 45.7 per cent users also use Telegram. Signal stands at 13.1 per cent.
“WhatsApp has more than 53 per cent of its users for over three years. In the past three years, Telegram gained most of its users, while in the past one year, Signal gained more than 47 per cent of its users,” the report said.
“Users are actively engaging across platforms daily indicating there is no clear-cut primary messaging app. Most of the users across apps use it several times in a day (at least 10 times),” it said.
More than 85 per cent of the respondents use specific apps for specific purposes. Over 32 per cent of the respondents send critical / secret messages over Telegram as over 45 per cent of the users are apprehensive about WhatsApp privacy basis media reports, as per the survey.
Also read: SC refuses to entertain plea against new WhatsApp privacy policy
81 per cent of the users are still confident regarding the privacy and security offered by WhatsApp.
“Even if WhatsApp loses its competitive advantage of most of the contacts for anybody using the app, over 70 per cent of the respondents said they will continue to use both – WhatsApp and Telegram,” as per the report.
Telegram, however, is still gaining significant popularity with at least one in every 5 respondents stating that they prefer Telegram over WhatsApp for varied reasons including “finding it secure and respecting the privacy, features like channels, allowance of users in a single group and sharing of large size files.”
Apart from this, roughly 44 per cent of the respondents are also turning to the platform to connect with official channels and are part of some government channel or group on Telegram. In terms of engagement, Telegram stands at a tie with WhatsApp with users using them equally at 34.4 per cent, the report said.
Also read: Telegram, the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide in January: Report
Faisal Kawoosa, Founder & Chief Analyst, techARC said, “Though there is a clear first mover advantage for WhatsApp, users are increasingly signing up other platforms like Telegram and Signal for their unique features and better security they offer. With this future of messaging apps in India is going to be pluralistic in nature.”
The research is based on responses from over 2,000 active messaging users across India.
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