This messaging app is spreading like forest fire. Are you using it?

A popular social media platform and a competitor of Meta-owned WhatsApp is all set to hit one billion active users within a time span of one year.

The CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov revealed this large number while he was speaking with a former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson Tuesday.

"Telegram is spreading like forest fire," said the Russian-born CEO Durov.

The messaging app is based in Dubai and was founded by the 39-year-old entrepreneur in 2013.

Durov left his country in 2014 where he was under pressure from the Russian government after he launched encrypted messaging designed by his brother. "I would rather be free than to take orders from anyone," he said.

"We'll probably cross one billion monthly active users within a year now," the owner Durov, told journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview uploaded on X, former Twitter.

According to the owner of a $15.5 billion fortune, some governments had sought to pressure him but his messaging platform should remain neutral and not a "player in geopolitics".

Telegram has currently 900 million active users, whereas, its competitor WhatsApp, has over two billion monthly active users.

A report by the Financial Times in March noted that Telegram would likely aim for a US listing once the company had reached profitability.

The Dubai-based messaging platform is popular in Russia and is known as one of the most popular social media platforms, after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and Wechat.