Telegram ‘Makes $540m Profit’ As Probes Continue

In the latest move by regulators against the company, Vietnam’s technology ministry last week instructed telecoms operators to block the app for not cooperating in criminal investigations, Reuters reported, ahead of a visit by French president Emmanuel Macron to the former French colony on Sunday.

Telegram, based in Dubai and run by Russian-born Pavel Durov, told investors its revenues reached $1.4bn last year, up from $343m a year earlier, going from a $173m loss in 2023 to its first annual profit.

The earnings were shared with potential backers as Telegram prepared to launch a bond offering of about $1.5bn to buy back existing debt, the Financial Times reported.

Profit surge

The debt sale began on Tuesday and could conclude as early as this week, the report said.

Telegram has been raising funds from paying subscribers as well as partnerships involving a cryptocurrency it founded.

Durov has meanwhile been placed under investigation by French authorities over the company’s alleged failure to address criminal activity including child abuse and terrorism on its platform.

The tech founder was briefly placed under arrest in France last year over the charges.

Last Monday Durov attacked French intelligence services, saying the charges were a smoke screen to cover up a real focus of “geopolitics”.

The Vietnamese blockade order, reportedly signed on 21 May by the country’s cyber-security department, cited police findings that 68 percent of the country’s 9,600 Telegram accounts included legal violations such as fraud, drug trafficking and “cases suspected of being related to terrorism”.

‘Reactionary subjects’

The document also cited police findings that “many groups with tens of thousands of participants were created by opposition and reactionary subjects spreading anti-government documents”.

A government official said the order followed Telegram’s failure to share user data with the government as part of criminal investigations.

The French investigation could bar the way to a Telegram IPO, but the company believes the probe could be resolved this year, according to the FT report.