New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS): The trend of multiple messaging app usage is picking up in India and Telegram is the frontrunner, having wooed a massive 42.9 per cent new users from WhatsApp in the past three years, a new survey said on Wednesday.

Although WhatsApp is currently the messaging leader with more than 53 per cent users in the country using its platform, Telegram has wooed most of its users, followed by Signal which also gained 47 per cent of WhatsApp users in the past one year owing to their extra security offerings, according to market research firm techARC.

In the case of upcoming WhatsApp data privacy policy from May 15, the Union Ministry of Electronics and IT has asked the messaging platform to withdraw, not defer, the recent change. In its letter to WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart, the ministry slammed the platform's "all or nothing" approach.

The Facebook-owned platform has over 40 crore users in the country. Telegram has crossed 60 crore users globally, mostly from India in recent months.

"Though there is a clear first-mover advantage for WhatsApp, users are increasingly signing up other platforms like Telegram and Signal for their unique features and better security they offer. With this future of messaging apps in India is going to be pluralistic in nature," said Faisal Kawoosa, Founder and Chief Analyst, techARC.

At least one in five respondents prefer Telegram over WhatsApp for varied reasons, including finding it secure and respecting the privacy, features like channels, allowance of users in a single group and sharing of large-size files.

"Nearly 44 per cent of the respondents were part of some government channel or group on Telegram. In terms of engagement, it stands at a tie with WhatsApp with users using them equally at 34.4 per cent," said the survey conducted with a sample size of 2,000 respondents across the country.

Over 32 cent of the respondents said they send critical and secret messages over Telegram.

More than 45 per cent of the users are apprehensive about WhatsApp privacy basis media reports.

"However, not all of them are unsure about the security as 81% of the users are still confident regarding the privacy and security offered by WhatsApp," the findings showed.

Even if WhatsApp loses its competitive advantage of most of the contacts for anybody using the app, over 70 per cent of respondents said they will continue to use both WhatsApp and Telegram, the survey noted.