Telegram, a well-known messaging service, has recently launched a collection of business-focused features called the Telegram Business package. This move is intended to compete against predominant industry leaders like Meta’s WhatsApp and Messenger.
The Telegram Business package offers a variety of tools aimed at entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses. These features are crafted to enable seamless communication, resource sharing, and customer engagement. The package includes tailored business features like a custom start page, setting operational hours, preset responses, greeting and away messages, and many more.
Telegram has polished its user interface to appeal more to businesses and made it more business-friendly. Combined with the app’s reliable privacy and security features, it looks to be a viable alternative to Facebook-owned applications. Notably, adopting Telegram’s role-based access control fosters a more secure and managed role distribution within teams.
In the transition towards an IPO, Telegram has set up a revenue-generating model where public Telegram channels with at least 1,000 subscribers can earn 50% of ad revenue from their channels. The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, believes this model could be a steady income source for the platform.
However, using these new features requires a subscription to Telegram Premium, which costs $4.99 per month on iOS and Android.
Telegram’s business-focused features to challenge Meta
Since its launch in December 2022, Telegram Premium has swiftly attracted four million subscribers and risen to eight million by January 2023. This success showcases the increasing demand for enhanced and comprehensive app features.
The new business features intend to attract more businesses to the Telegram network. These features include displaying operational hours and location, custom greetings, availability management via away messaging, and more. Furthermore, businesses can integrate chatbots or AI assistants for autonomous responses.
The remarkable growth signifies a turning point in the app’s history. Many service providers might consider adopting the freemium model, considering the precedent set by Telegram. As Telegram Business contributes to changing norms of business-to-customer communications, it will be intriguing to see its overall value against the backdrop of its impending IPO.
Despite facing challenges, particularly regarding ad content moderation and ensuring user privacy, Durov assures that the platform will confront these issues and uphold its core values. Regardless of its future on the stock market, it appears that innovation and adaptability will remain at the heart of Telegram’s corporate strategy.
