Russia is tightening control over its digital communications market, throttling WhatsApp and Telegram ahead of a likely full ban when state-backed app Max becomes mandatory on new devices, signalling a move towards towards China’s ‘Great Firewall’-style regulation. With 100M+ Russians relying on these platforms today, the shift could reshape both consumer habits and business messaging strategies, while raising questions over surveillance, adoption, and the future of cross-border engagement. MEF Principal Analyst for Business Messaging Pamela Clark-Dickson discusses the potential impact.
Russian authorities started throttling voice and video calling on WhatsApp and Telegram in early August, in what is likely a precursor to the total ban of both apps once the country’s own state-based messaging app, Max, starts to be installed on all new devices sold in Russia from 1 September.
The restrictions reportedly resulted in former WhatsApp and Telegram users in Russia moving to Google Meet, which rose to second-most downloaded free communications app on the Russian App Store, after Max itself, which already has 18 million downloads.
The Russian government attributed the restrictions on WhatsApp and Telegram to concerns from law enforcement agencies and consumers over the malicious use of the apps by terrorists, saboteurs and criminals; it says Meta and Telegram have ignored its requests to take countermeasures. Russian authorities have not levelled similar complaints against Google Meet, rather, the Moscow Times is reporting that Google Meet may fall victim to a wider ban on foreign technology.
The move towards government bans or restrictions on the use of consumer messaging apps, regardless of the rationale, potentially narrows the addressable market for app-based business messaging.”
WhatsApp and Telegram enable end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging, voice and video calling by default for person-to-person communications, meaning that it is not possible for messages and calls on these platforms to be intercepted. That means security and law enforcement agencies have little or no oversight of P2P communications over these apps – and others – which is a key concern for authorities not just in Russia but other countries as well (see: https://mobileecosystemforum.com/2025/07/16/personal-messaging-apps-banned-the-global-trend-of-bans-and-state-controlled-alternatives/)
Meanwhile, Max’s installation on all new devices sold in Russia makes it available by default and therefore provides a better guarantee of widespread penetration among the Russian population. While the app promises to enable access to government services and mobile payments as well as communications services, it’s also believed that it will be subject to state surveillance.
There are 66.7 million WhatsApp users in Russia, and 35.1 million Telegram users, according to MEF data; this equates to 60.1% and 31.7% of adult mobile users in Russia, respectively. With around 30 million new smartphone devices sold in Russia each year, this means that Max could achieve the same market penetration as Telegram in just over a year, and rival WhatsApp in just over two years.
The native availability of Max on mobile devices is no guarantee of uptake and use by Russian consumers, however. Adoption will suffer if the app does not have the same feature-richness of apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, to which consumers are also already accustomed. And the banning of WhatsApp, Telegram and Google Meet won’t necessarily mean that Russian consumers can’t access them, if they use ban-busting tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs). Consequently Russia’s bid to gain greater control over the messaging app market may struggle to match the success of China’s Weixin/WeChat, the Tencent-owned super-app that dominates its domestic market.
Russia is one of the ~25 individual countries for which Meta provides pricing for messaging on the WhatsApp Business platform (pricing for other countries is included in regional buckets), suggesting that Meta believes Russia to be an attractive market for WhatsApp paid business messaging.
Interestingly, the chain of E2EE via WhatsApp paid business messaging is disrupted once a business receives a message from a WhatsApp user, since the contents of the message typically need to be shared internally so the business can act on it. This means that theoretically authorities may find it more acceptable for Russian brands to use WhatsApp to communicate with their customers. However, there still needs to be a WhatsApp user base within Russia for that to be viable.
It’s a similar story for Telegram, which offers a business messaging capability, Telegram Business, as part of its Telegram Premium subscription. Brands can also use Telegram business messaging APIs and bots, including via CPaaS vendors, to enable customer engagement use cases including verification/OTPs, transactions, and marketing. But if the Telegram user base within Russia is compromised, it loses value to brands as a channel for customer engagement.
The move towards government bans or restrictions on the use of consumer messaging apps, regardless of the rationale, potentially narrows the addressable market for app-based business messaging. And it’s happening at a time when market conditions are as ripe as they’ll ever be for the uptake and use of global messaging apps for customer engagement, in terms of their widespread penetration and the support of the underlying business messaging ecosystem for onboarding campaigns.
For more information or to join the Insight Group, please contact the MEF team at info@mobileecosystemforum.com.
