In June 2018, the mobile application Telegram daily used an average of 2.9 million Russians aged 12-64 years living in cities with a population of 100 thousand people, the research company Mediascope estimated. Compared to April 2018, when the daily audience of the Telegram application reached a historic high (over 3.7 million people), the drop in June was 23%, compared to May - 21%.

To measure the audience on mobile devices in such cities Mediascope began only in September 2017, so it is not possible to compare the June figures with the same period of the previous year.

How in Russia measure the audience on mobile devices

The research company Mediascope has its own mobile panel: in Russian cities with a population of 100 thousand people, according to October 2017, 1,7 thousand people aged 12-64 years were selected. These are typical residents of large cities in the selected age group. Special software company RealityMine tracks all actions of respondents on mobile devices based on Android and iOS.

The data given by Mediascope reflects only the number of people who logged into the mobile applications of Telegram and other messengers. How long the session lasted and how successful it was, the meter did not record.

In mid-April, Roskomnadzor won a telegram in Russia for a lock-up of Telegram: then Tagansky District Court of Moscow admitted that the registered in the UK Telegram Messenger LLP, the manager of the messenger, violated Russian law without passing the keys to the FSB to decrypt user messages. After that, Roskomnadzor made Telegram resources in the register of prohibited sites, and telecom operators began to block them. However, the user can bypass the lock using VPN and proxy services.

Due to the blocking, the "degradation of the Telegram" on different kinds of devices is 10-15%, the head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov said in an interview with Izvestia in May. According to him, users of Telegram do not download pictures, do not go through audio and video calls, which leads to a decrease in the number of users.

The fact that the daily maximum of Telegram reached its absolute maximum, according to Mediascope, in the month when the service was blocked, Zharov explained to RBC the "Streisand effect": the attempt to delete information leads to its more spread.

RBC sent requests to Roskomnadzor and Telegram founder Pavel Durov with a request to comment Mediascope data for June.

Other popular messengers in Russia did not benefit from Telegram blocking, Mediascope measurements show. If in May the daily audience of the WhatsApp mobile application grew by 8% compared to April, to 14.3 million people, then in June it decreased by 2% compared to the previous month, to 14 million. Viber . In May, the daily audience of its mobile application remained at the level of April, amounting to 9.5 million people, in June it decreased compared to May by 8%, to 8.7 million people. Lost in the first summer month of users and Skype.

Of the five most popular instant messengers in Russia in June, positive dynamics - an increase compared to April by 25% - was demonstrated only by the mobile application Google Chat. But in absolute terms, its daily audience is still small - only 746 thousand people in June, which is several times less than the "big three": WhatsApp, Viber and Telegram.