Hong Kong Protests Drive Surge in Telegram Chat App

Leaderless movement relies on apps to help coordinate protests
Hundreds of thousands of users download once-obscure services

Demonstrators gather at the Hong Kong International Airport on Aug. 13.Photographer: Kyle Lam/Bloomberg

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By Shelly Banjo

August 15, 2019 at 5:00 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

First-time users of Telegram surged in Hong Kong after protesters flocked to the popular chat app during the months-long demonstrations that gripped the city, new data from Sensor Tower shows.

Telegram gained about 110,000 new users in Hong Kong in July across the Apple App Store and Google Play. First-time installs more than quadrupled, pushing the app to the city’s seventh-most downloaded last month from No. 88 a year earlier, the mobile data provider said. In total, Telegram has been installed 1.7 million times in Hong Kong and 365 million globally.