70 Million Facebook Users Switched to Telegram during Outage: Durov

Telegram messaging app gained more than 70 million new users during the Facebook outage on Monday, which left social media users worldwide without messaging services for more than six hours, according to Russian founder Pavel Durov.

Facebook's outage prevented 3.5 billion users from accessing services like WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger at the same time, blaming it on a faulty configuration change.

“We have welcomed more than 70 million refugees from other platforms in one day,” Durov said, adding that some users in the Americas may have experienced slower speeds as millions rushed to sign up at the same time, but the service worked for the majority.

Market players said a WhatsApp outage of nearly six hours on Monday affected the trading of assets from cryptocurrency to Russian oil, although a quick switch to alternative platforms such as Telegram limited the crises.

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said the outage showed the implications of relying on one big player and underlined the need for more competitors.