Popular caller-identification service Truecaller has amassed 250 million monthly active users and 200 million daily active users, demonstrating an accelerated pace of growth in recent quarters, even as a global pandemic has hurt most businesses, it said on Wednesday.
The service, run by the eponymous Stockholm-headquartered firm, allows users to avoid spam calls by identifying the callers, and also filters similar texts. The service is popular in many parts of the world, but India, where everyone receives dozens of such calls each month, is Truecaller’s biggest market.
Even as Apple and Google have improved the caller ID feature in their mobile operating systems in recent years, and taken several other steps to curb spam calls, Truecaller’s offerings remain unmatched.
Truecaller had 200 million monthly active users in February this year, and it reached the 100 million daily active users milestone in April 2018. More than 185 million of its monthly active user base are in India. In fact, Truecaller is the only app not made by Google or Facebook on the list of top 10 most used apps in the country, according to mobile insights firm App Annie (data of which an industry exec shared with TechCrunch).
In recent years, Truecaller has expanded its platform to add messaging and payments services, which has also allowed it to broaden the scope to monetize users. The company told TechCrunch that its revenue grew 90% in the quarter that ended in September, compared to the same period last year. Earlier this year, the company launched a new product that allows businesses to authenticate users on their apps without giving them a call.
The 11-year-old, Sequoia Capital -backed firm is also preparing to go public within the next two years, its co-founder and chief executive Alan Mamedi told TechCrunch in an interview early this year.
On Wednesday, Truecaller also announced it has appointed Fredrik Kjell as its new chief operating officer. Kjell previously served as chief product officer at Kindred Group, an online gambling company.
“With Fredrik’s strong operational background from previous consumer companies, and vast experience in a large publicly traded company, we believe he will be a great addition to the company and the global executive team. We’re on an exciting journey to take Truecaller to the next level, and this is a great step towards it,” said Mamedi in a statement.
Manish Singh
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