For a long time, Telegram was basically free to use, and because of this, the company did not make any significant revenue as such. In 2021, Telegram introduced Telegram Premium and Telegram Ads as new ways to generate revenue. Along with this, the company had also issued five-year convertible dollar bonds. These bonds offered an annual yield of 7%, amounting to a total of $2.35 billion. Additionally, the bonds allowed investors to convert them into Telegram shares at a 10% discount to the nominal price in the event of an IPO.
By 2024, Telegram’s total revenue had exceeded $1 billion, and this was also the year when the company became profitable. In the same year, Pavel Durov had revealed that the $2 billion debt was mostly paid at that time. Further, in May 2025, Telegram again issued convertible bonds worth $1.7 billion. Out of this, approximately $955 million was used to buy back bonds from 2021. The remaining $745 million was used as “fresh” money for daily operations.
🎉 Telegram has fully repaid the bonds we issued 5 years ago.
💰 Since 2021, we’ve built an innovative monetization strategy and reached profitability in 2024. As a result, our new bond issuance last year was oversubscribed. 💪
🙏 Thank you for your support!
— Pavel Durov (@durov) March 23, 2026
As per what has now been shared by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov via a post on X, the platform has fully repaid the bonds that it had issued about five years ago. These bonds were essentially IOUs to investors. He further added, “Since 2021, we’ve built an innovative monetisation strategy and reached profitability in 2024. As a result, our new bond issuance last year was oversubscribed.”
Talking about revenue sources, Telegram currently generates its income from multiple segments. Telegram Premium offers users additional features through monthly subscriptions. The Ad Platform runs privacy-focused advertisements within large public channels. Fragment enables the buying and selling of usernames as well as virtual items. In addition to this, Business Features provide tools that allow companies to interact with customers directly on the platform.
