Telegram profits soar despite legal storm for founder Durov
Telegram boasts about its commendable results. Last year, it achieved a profit of approximately £440 million. Simultaneously, legal proceedings are underway against the app's founder, Pavel Durov, with France levelling serious allegations.
Telegram's profit was approximately £440 million last year, as reported by The Financial Times. The group informed investors that its revenues reached around £1.15 billion in 2024, compared to nearly £280 million the previous year.
Telegram highlights its strong performance despite the significant challenges faced by its founder. In August of last year, French authorities detained Pavel Durov in Paris.
As "FT" notes, Durov was born in Russia but holds citizenship in France and the United Arab Emirates. France accuses him of failing to cooperate with French services tracking crimes committed using Telegram, including child exploitation and terrorism.
Telegram currently has over a billion monthly active users worldwide and is managed by a compact team of about 60 employees. FT explains that most moderation tasks are outsourced to external contractors.
The newspaper writes that the company acknowledged the French investigation could impede the IPO (Initial Public Offering, which marks the first public offering of company shares debuting on the stock exchange), but noted that it could be resolved this year.
Pavel Durov contends that the French authorities used the pretext of tackling child sexual exploitation to detain him, stating that their primary goal has always been geopolitics, as he posted on Telegram on Monday.
Durov maintained that he refused a request from Nicolas Lerner, the head of French intelligence, to ban conservative voices in Romania before the upcoming elections. "Falsely implying Telegram did nothing to remove child porn is a manipulation tactic," he wrote on X. French intelligence denied Durov's claims.
