During the New Year holidays in Russia, Telegram traffic rose by 46% year-on-year, a surge strong enough to push the app ahead of TikTok in overall popularity. This shift was reported by MegaFon, the country’s large mobile operator, through its press service as relayed to socialbites.ca, highlighting a notable change in user behavior during the festive period.
YouTube emerged as the most visited platform on New Year’s Eve and the ensuing weekend, reflecting a preference for long-form and streaming content during celebrations. At the same time, subscriber activity within the YouTube app showed a nearly 10% decline compared with the same period in 2023, illustrating the varied dynamics of content consumption during the holidays. VKontakte, another major social network, held the second spot for the year but with only a 1% gain in popularity, signaling a relatively slower pace of growth for that service across the year.
Among the top five services were TikTok and Kinopoisk. TikTok’s traffic fell by 17% during the holidays, while Kinopoisk experienced a substantial rise of 31%, indicating shifting preferences in entertainment and video discovery during the vacation season. MegaFon’s data also show that online cinemas and instant messengers demonstrated explosive growth during the holidays, increasing by 28% and 45% respectively, underscoring a broader pivot toward streaming and rapid messaging during festive periods.
The rise in instant messenger usage is linked to a shift in how Russians approached internet searches and information gathering. Over the New Year holidays, the average Russian spent fewer minutes on searches than in the previous year and also recorded a notable drop compared with the 2022 New Year’s weekend, signaling a possible move toward more direct messaging and quick conversational queries during the break.
Past assessments emphasize that Telegram’s prior performance in Russia experienced a major setback, a reminder that shifts in platform popularity can follow rapid changes in user needs, seasonal trends, and regional preferences. The observed dynamics during the holiday window illustrate how consumer attention can redistribute quickly across messaging apps, video platforms, and entertainment services as people adjust routines for celebrations and time off.