Telegram is a messaging app that was already attracting plenty of interest before rival WhatsApp was recently acquired by Facebook. Now it appears that the Telegram app is benefitting from disillusioned WhatsApp users jumping ship to another service.

Not long ago we told how the Telegram app was a recent arrival among messaging services, and followed that with a review of the Android version of the secure messaging app. It takes time to rival established apps offering a similar service such as WhatsApp and BBM, but Telegram’s popularity is shooting up.

Last week Facebook acquired WhatsApp, a move that concerned many WhatsApp users, some of whom were cynical about the massive force that is Facebook taking over their favourite app. Just days later WhatsApp suffered its biggest outage ever, prompting a huge backlash among users of WhatsApp with many people expressing their frustration.

While that might be bad news for WhatsApp and Facebook, the creators of Telegram should be rubbing their hands in delight. TechCrunch reports that after Facebook acquired WhatsApp, Telegram overtook it in the App Store free app rankings.

Telegram’s creator Pavel Durov said that before news of the WhatsApp/Facebook deal the Telegram app was gaining ground of between 300,000 to 400,000 downloads every day. However with news of the acquisition the app started to gain 1 million Android, iOS and Windows new downloads each day.

Further to this, when WhatsApp went down for several hours at the weekend, Telegram added 1.8 million users on the same day and after this added a further 4.9 million users. While WhatsApp users may have become disillusioned with the app, Telegram is picking up the bounty.

If would be interesting to know where you stand on this. Were you, or are you still, a dedicated WhatsApp user? If so have you already decided to try out Telegram, or are you planning to do so? Maybe you’ve used the Telegram app since its beginning and have no plans to use another messaging service? Let us have your comments on this.