Pavel Durov - about the fact that competitors consider Telegram to be allegedly controlled by the Russian authorities:

Pavel Durov - about the fact that competitors consider Telegram to be allegedly controlled by the Russian authorities: This can be said by people with very limited knowledge of where Telegram came from. And they may be encouraged by our competitors, who see this as a good way to discredit us, because Telegram is spreading like wildfire. 2.5 million users register every day. We are something of a threat. I’m not surprised that they perceive us this way. You can compare: they spend tens of billions of dollars on marketing, they use PR companies to promote them. [How much do you spend on promotion?] Zero. [Zero dollars?] Zero dollars. We have never spent money on user acquisition or marketing purposes. Source: Victor vicktop55