National messenger Max has reached one million users

The authorities want to replace them with other messengers

The national messenger Max has gained its first million users, the company’s press service claims. The most registrations were recorded in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Krasnodar.

According to Max, 14 million messages have been sent through the app in recent weeks and over 420,000 calls have been made. The bulk of the audience is Android device owners (75%), followed by iOS (23%) and PC (2%) users.

Max is positioned as the Russian analogue of the Chinese “super application” WeChat.

From September 1, the application will be pre-installed on all gadgets sold in the country. According to the authorities, using the messenger it will also be possible to receive government services in electronic form, as well as use it for payments.

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What will happen to other messengers?

After the launch of Max, the authorities are ready to tighten measures against foreign platforms, said the head of the Duma Committee on Information Policy, Sergei Boyarsky. First of all, we are talking about Telegram and WhatsApp - for violating laws on data storage and deleting prohibited content.

“We understood perfectly well that punishing non-alternative platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram would, in fact, cause certain inconvenience and the risk of losing the ability to communicate for a huge number of people,” Boyarsky explained. According to him, now, with the advent of Max, the situation is changing.

The authorities claim that there are no plans to ban Telegram and WhatsApp yet, but, according to experts, blocking could follow as early as this year.

Previously, “Verstka” reported that Telegram, WhatsApp and Viber and Discord, which were blocked in Russia, began to be fined for lack of user identification . This may be related to the creation of a “national messenger”.

Photo: Photo: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/Sipa USA

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