The Telugu of Malaysia

The Telugu of Malaysia, numbering approximately 137,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are an Indo-Iranian ethnolinguistic group indigenous to the India states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Puducherry. They are an Diaspora people, in the Telugu people cluster of the South Asian Peoples affinity bloc. Their primary religion is Hinduism. They primarily speak Telugu.

Telugu in Canada photo
Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Telugu

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: South Asian Peoples
Country: Malaysia
People Cluster: Telugu
Primary Language(s): Telugu (tel)
Primary Religion(s): Hinduism
Population: 137,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 5% or Greater but Less than 10% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG009356
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Telugu of Malaysia

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Hinduism
Religious Affiliation: Hinduism

%
Hinduism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Telugu
Language Family: Dravidian

%
Telugu Speakers

Bible Resources in Telugu:

Or check out the Telugu bible resources at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

Next steps for the Telugu

The Telugu are Unengaged and Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Next steps for the Telugu

The Telugu are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Next steps for the Telugu

The Telugu are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Telugu of Malaysia

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
readJohn 3:19

Pray that God will have mercy on those who love the darkness they are walking in and turn from their sin to faith in Christ.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
readRomans 3:23

Pray that the gospel will advance and many will acknowledge that all have sinned, fall short of God's glory, and need a Savior to reconcile them to God.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
readRomans 6:11

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will lay down all evil desires, dying to sin and living for Him alone.

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
read2 Corinthians 1:8-9

Pray that as people hear and believe the gospel, they will be faithful as they walk through trials and will have an opportunity to be a witness to others in this people group of the goodness of God.

Telugu (ROP3 - 109930) reported in the following countries:

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Definitions page.

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