Truecaller Hits 200 million Active Users as the Caller Identifier Plans to Launch its Payment Service into Africa

Popular Caller identification and Spam Blocking app, Truecaller has hit a major milestone as it surpasses 200 million active customers across the world.

Truecaller currently has over 50 million users in Africa and about 150 million monthly active users in India its largest market. It is however unclear how many of those users are paid subscribers. As at 2018 though, the service recorded 1 million paid users.

Founded in 2009 by Swedish software company, True Software Scandinavia AB, Truecaller has become popular in many countries including Nigeria for its caller identification and spam blocking features.

Truecaller offers caller-identification, call-blocking, flash-messaging, call-recording, Chat and Voice services using the internet. The company went on to launch advertisement and payments services in some of its markets, most notably, India.

The payment service, Truecaller Pay, allows users create their unique Virtual Payment Address (VPA) in the Truecaller app, which can be used to instantly send or receive money using any Unified Payments Interface (UPI) supported bank.

However, the payments service is currently only available in India, but the co-founder and chief executive of Truecaller, Alan Mamedi has revealed in an interview with TechCrunch that the company will soon expand their payment services into some African markets.

Truecaller ads generate more than half of the company’s revenue, while the companies paid subscription service accounts for about 30% of it.

Last year, the company reached the landmark of 1 Million Premium Subscribers on its app. Truecaller has raised about $99 million in funding since its inception, According to CrunchBase.

Truecallers payment service

Over the past year, Truecaller have leveraged its user base and highly personalized and user-specific mobile number-based identity solution, Truecaller SDK, to partner with companies and launch into new verticals like its payments service. They also acquired Indian payments startup Chillr

In 2018, Truecaller Caller ID, through its partnership with Airtel, reached 1 million paid subscribers. It also partnered with Times Internet Ltd, India’s largest entertainment and media group, to make the signing process of users easier and faster using their number base identity solution.

In Africa, the company has partnered popular Nigerian payment gateway Paystack to provide phone number verification of Paystack Merchants leveraging its mobile identity product.

Through its many partnerships, leveraging the apps expanding user base and the unique number base identity solution, Truecaller could create a good foundation for its payment services to fly in Africa.