Truecaller crosses 200 mn monthly user mark globally led by India

True Software Scandinavia AB, which owns and operates caller identification app Truecaller, now has 200 million monthly active users MAU across the world. Of this, about 150 million are from its largest market, India. 

The Stockholm, Sweden-based company has also achieved profitability over the last four months. In India, an increase in advertising sales and premium subscriptions have helped the platform grow, the company said in a statement.

“We are thrilled and humbled that we have been profitable for the last several months while simultaneously growing revenues at over 70% annually….We will continue to grow revenues through investments in the advertisement, subscriptions, credit, and financial services,” Sandeep Patil, MD, Truecaller said.

Launched a year ago, premium subscriptions crossed one-million mark and the service is projected to grow by another 50% in coming months, the statement added. 

Truecaller has expanded beyond caller ID and now offers a range of services including instant messaging, VoIP (voice over IP), and fintech products including UPI (Unified Payments Interface) money transfers and BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System). It is expected to launch digital money lending within the first quarter of this year.

The company has also grown its business portfolio with Truecaller for Business, which helps small businesses be discovered by nearby users. Truecaller has revamped its Truecaller Priority service that identifies relevant calls from businesses, thereby differentiating them from spam calls.

In India, Truecaller wants to help the local talent pool. “We will make in India for India by recruiting talent across technology, product management, data sciences and finance and developing partnerships across the ecosystem. This is a concrete milestone on our path to building a financially-sustainable independent company that will be ready for IPO in three years,” Patil added.

Seattle-based Hiya, with about 100 million users, is considered as Truecaller’s closest rival. Other players in the caller ID space include Nürnberg, Germany based Caller Dialer and Tel Aviv headquartered Sync.Me.

Founded in 2009 by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam, Truecaller is backed by venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Buyers, Atomico, former Vodafone global CEO Arun Sarin and Arvind Rajnish Vohra, former CEO of Gionee India.

The platform’s growth in India hasn’t been smooth. In August, Truecaller was barred from adding new users to the unified payment interface (UPI) platform by government-run digital payments platform National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Late last month, the Border Security Force (BSF) asked its officers and jawans to avoid using Truecaller.