Last year, the Telegraph jumped to $540 million in profits as messaging applications continue to grow rapidly, despite continued threats to the leadership of its founder Pavel Durov.
The Dubai-based group told investors that revenue reached $1.4 billion in 2024, up from $343 million a year ago, according to a Financial Times company. The company also lost from $173 million in 2023 to its first annual profit.
According to people familiar with the matter, the bumper's revenue was shared with potential supporters, launching about $1.5 billion in bonds in telegram to buy back existing debts. Debt sales began Tuesday and could end as early as next week.
The results show that part of the telegram is increased due to the benefits of paying users and the benefits associated with the cryptocurrency they have established.
Despite doubts about the future of the group, growth remains in the wake of French authorities' detention in Paris in August last year.
Born in Russia, Durov now has French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, he has failed to address criminal acts, including child abuse and terrorism, around the app. This case may result in a sentence.
Durov has attacked the authorities in recent days. He wrote on Monday that although French intelligence services indicated sexual abuse with children was an excuse for his detention, “their main focus was geopolitics.”
Durov has previously claimed that he rejected the request of French intelligence chief Nicolas Lerner to ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of the country's elections. He wrote on X: "Misleadingly implied that the Telegram did not do any strategy to remove child pornography." French intelligence rejected Durov's claim.
Telegram now has over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, run by a small team of about 60 employees, while most moderately outsource it to contractors.
According to several people familiar with the phone calls of potential investors in the deal, the Telegraph's chief investment officer John Hyman said the company has reached all financial milestones and a potential IPO could be seen if the market becomes more friendly.
One person said the company also acknowledged that the French investigation could be a barrier to the IPO, but pointed out that the investigation could be resolved early this year.
The person added that the new bond issuance yields a 9% yield, which will give investors the option to buy stocks at a 20% discount later in any IPO, reflecting previous terms of bond sales.
According to investors' filings, about half of Telegram's 2024 revenue is worth $1.4 billion from its revenue tagged as "partnerships and ecosystems", while approximately $250 million comes from advertising and $292 million in premium subscriptions.
Partnerships and ecosystem businesses are primarily driven by developers building what they call “mini apps” directly into telegrams in areas such as business and gaming.
The platform is backed by the TON blockchain, which was originally developed by Telegram but is now maintained by the open source community. Its ton-coin cryptocurrency has been deeply integrated into the app for payments or buying telegram ads on the mini app.
Previous Financial Times documents show that last year's business profited from third-party transactions related to custodians and sales of its own cryptocurrency holdings.
According to investor documents, the Telegram targets revenue of $20 billion in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 46%. It also aims to achieve a profit of $700 million next year. As of February 2025, the group had approximately $530 million in cash, a figure that excludes its cryptocurrency assets.
The documents show that the telegram, which Durov has fully owned, has issued about $2.4 billion in bonds over the past four years. It said in the filing that between September 2024 and December 2024, it repurchased $375 million in outstanding bonds.
In his speech, Telegram also pointed to opportunities around artificial intelligence, saying it has become the largest open platform for "conversationalist AI."
It highlights a new partnership with Elon Musk’s AI group XAI. The news group said it has integrated Xai's Grok Chatbot into the telegram, "planning to promote it within the platform and distribute the revenue generated" without revealing more details.
The partnership marks the first time Grok's expansion to new social media services outside the Musk X platform.
Durov and Musk also align with their position on freedom of speech. Boss X shared Durov’s post about Romania’s French intelligence requirements on Sunday, with his 2.2 billion followers writing: “Wow.”
Telegraph declined to comment.