Telegram and Signal pick up where WhatsApp turned off

The Future. When Facebook’s apps all went down on Monday, messaging competitors such as Telegram and Signal saw a huge surge in usage. We’ll see if those users make the change for good, but Facebook’s outage may only cement how much attention its platforms command when they’re not working.

What App?
Facebook’s platform blackout (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus) was to almost every other platform’s gain….especially when it comes to messaging.

• On Monday, messaging app Telegram scored a record 70 million new users.
• Going off Telegram’s January count of 500 million monthly users, that single-day surge provided an over 10% increase in users.
• Encrypted messaging app Signal also counted a 15% increase in new signups, according to Sensor Tower.

Funny enough, the last time these platforms saw a surge in signups was in January when WhatsApp was rolling out its controversial new privacy policy. Whenever WhatsApp falters, competitors can count on immediately finding new users….a key reason why Telegram allows users to import their entire WhatsApp chat history to ease the switch.

Facebook support platform
But it wasn’t just messaging apps that had a good day.

• Snapchat saw a 23% increase in usage compared to last week.
• Twitter saw an 11% increase (probably from people panic-tweeting that Facebook was down).

Interestingly, TikTok only saw a 2% increase in usage. Does that mean that users really aren’t choosing between TikTok and Instagram Reels but instead watching both simultaneously? Maybe the only way to know for sure is for TikTok to go dark.