Truecaller

History

Truecaller is developed by True Software Scandinavia AB, a public company listed in Sweden with a head office in Stockholm, Sweden, founded by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam in 2009, but most of its employees are in India.

It was initially launched on Symbian and Windows Mobile on 1 July 2009. It was released for Android and Apple iPhone on 23 September 2009, for BlackBerry on 27 February 2012, for Windows Phone on 1 March 2012, and for Nokia Series 40 on 3 September 2012.

As of September 2012, Truecaller had five million users performing 120 million searches of the telephone number database every month. As of 22 January 2013, Truecaller reached 10 million users. As of January 2017, Truecaller had reached 250 million users worldwide. As of 4 February 2020, it crossed 200 million monthly user-base globally, of which 150 million were from India.

On 18 September 2012, TechCrunch announced that OpenOcean, a venture capital fund led by former MySQL and Nokia executives (including Michael Widenius, founder of MySQL), were investing US$1.3 million in Truecaller to push Truecaller's global reach. Truecaller said that it intended to use the new funding to expand its footprint in "key markets"—specifically North America, Asia and the Middle East.

In February 2014, Truecaller received in funding from Sequoia Capital, alongside existing investor OpenOcean, Truecaller chairman Stefan Lennhammer, and an unnamed private investor. It also announced a partnership with Yelp to use Yelp's API data to help identify business numbers when they call a smartphone. In October of the same year, they received from Niklas Zennström's Atomico investment firm and from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

On 7 July 2015, Truecaller launched its SMS app called TrueMessenger exclusively in India. TrueMessenger enables users to identify the sender of SMS messages. This launch was aimed at increasing the company's user base in India which are the bulk of its active users.

In December 2019, Truecaller announced it plans to go public in an IPO in 2022. Truecaller has launched the Covid Hospital Directory keeping in mind the increasing cases of corona infection in India. Through this directory, Indian users will get information about the telephone number and address of Covid Hospitals.

In January 2025, Truecaller added real-time Caller ID and spam-blocking for iOS 18.2 users, functionality previously available to Android phone users.

Competitive and regulatory landscape

Truecaller gets about 75% of its revenue from India. The Indian regulatory body TRAI has a competing service for Caller ID based on CNAP (Caller Name Presentation). This would enable caller ID without the use of any apps. There were small tests done in June/July 2024. If this is rolled out pan India, analysts expect this to substantially impact the usage of Truecaller in India.

Indian data privacy act which will come into force in later 2024 is also expected to negatively impact Truecaller in India. When this is in force, Truecaller will not be able to collect and use unconsented data which powers their caller ID database.

In a lawsuit in Nigeria, Truecaller defended their security and privacy policy stating that the users whose phone books were uploaded by Truecaller are the data controllers and that Truecaller is merely a data processor. This is different from Europe where they do not seem to upload users' phone books as it may run afoul of GDPR. There are now 2 more lawsuits against Truecaller in Nigeria seeking to end Truecaller's unconsented data practices (ONWUBUARIRI vs TRUECALLER INTERNATIONAL LLP and OKAFOR vs TRUECALLER INTERNATIONAL LLP).

In Aug/Sep 2024, the Indian regulatory body TRAI started cracking down on tele spammers. They instructed telecom providers to terminate all telecom resources of unregistered tele marketers (UTMs). This enforcement started in late August and is leading to a massive termination of spamming numbers and blacklisting their companies so that they cannot get any phone numbers from any other providers for 2 years. If this is (even partially) successful in disconnecting the top spamming companies, it may lead to a massive reduction in spam calls and thus reducing the number of ads shown by Truecaller.

In Feb 2025, IMY (Integritetsskyddsmyndigheten) which is Sweden's GDPR regulator started an investigation/supervision into the data practices of Truecaller. The decision is awaited.

Security and privacy issues

On 17 July 2013, Truecaller servers were allegedly hacked into by the Syrian Electronic Army. E Hacking News reported the group identified 7 sensitive databases it claimed to have exfiltrated, primarily due to an unmaintained WordPress installation on the servers.

Truecaller uploads users' stored contacts to their servers to form a database of phone numbers. This may violate GDPR and similar regulations in multiple countries.

Truecaller also tracks phone calls made by non-users to users (and vice versa) and hence collects information about those non users in detail. These non-users don't have a way to stop this data collection.

In November 2019, India-based security researcher Ehraz Ahmed discovered a security flaw that exposed user data as well as system and location information. Truecaller confirmed this information and the bug was immediately fixed.

Multiple times in 2020 and 2021, there were reports about a massive Truecaller database leak on the internet. The reports surfaced again in 2024. The leaked database has information regarding users' (and non-users') phone numbers, names, phone carrier, tags, email addresses, etc.

References

References

1. "Truecaller - Android-apps op Google Play".
2. (2012-09-27). "Truecaller - worldwide number search and spam filter for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad". iTunes App Store.
3. Sredaktion, Dagens P. "About Truecaller".
4. Rönnklint, Richard. (2012-09-04). "Truecaller når 5 miljoner medlemmar". [[AppLovin]].
5. Harald, Patrik. (2012-09-19). "Open Ocean investerar i svenska Truecaller".
6. Meyer, David. (2013-01-22). "Big in India, Swedish phone directory service Truecaller hits 20M user milestone". Gigaom.
7. (2017-01-18). "Truecaller in 2017". Truecaller Blog.
8. (2020-02-04). "Truecaller crosses 200 mn monthly user-base globally; ushers in 150 mn Indians".
9. Sheth, Hemani. (4 February 2020). "Truecaller hits the 200-million mark in monthly active users".
10. Lomas, Natasha. (September 18, 2012). "Open Ocean Invests $1.3M To Push Crowdsourced Directory Truecaller's Global Reach". ([[TechCrunch]] was owned by [[AOL]] as of 2012).
11. (2012-09-19). "Investor in Community and Open Source Business". Open Ocean Capital.
12. Videla, Emanuel. (2012-09-19). "Miljonregn över svenska Truecaller". IT24/IDG.
13. Clayton, Nick. (2012-09-20). "Truecaller Collects $1.3 Million for Crowd-Sourced Phone Book". Tech Europe - Wall Street Journal.
14. Lomas, Natasha. (2012-09-18). "Open Ocean Invests $1.3M To Push Crowdsourced Directory Truecaller's Global Reach". TechCrunch.
15. Crook, Jordan. (2014-02-06). "Truecaller Lands $18.8M Series B From Sequoia, Partners With Yelp To Verify Business Numbers". Tech Crunch.
16. "Sweden's Truecaller clinches $60 million in venture capital funding". Reuters.
17. Agarwal, Amit. (2015-07-07). "Truecaller Launches SMS App In India, Aims 150 mn Users Base". Digital World.
18. (2017-04-03). "Take Back Control of Your SMS Inbox". Truecaller.
19. Rolander, Nicolas. (2019-12-18). "Truecaller Branches Out to Fintech Ahead of Potential IPO". Bloomberg.
20. (29 April 2021). "Truecaller Launches Covid Hospital Directory, To Get Phone Number Information of Covid Hospitals". Gadgets Techly360.
21. (2025-01-22). "'Your iPhone will never be the same': Truecaller updates iOS app with big features".
22. (2025-01-22). "Truecaller brings real-time caller ID to iPhone users".
23. (2025-01-22). "Truecaller Finally Brings Real-Time Caller ID to iPhones – How to Use".
24. (23 February 2024). "TRAI releases Recommendations on 'Introduction of Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) Service in Indian Telecommunication Network'".
25. "Reverse Phone Lookup & Search".
26. (14 June 2024). "Telecom operators kick off trials for Calling Name Presentation service". BusinessLine.
27. "Olumide Babalola on LinkedIn: OBLP v Truecaller {{!}} 13 comments".
28. (3 September 2024). "Trai's crackdown on pesky calls: Telcos block 2.75 lakh telephone numbers, 50 firms". The Economic Times.
29. Selvan, Sabari. (2013-07-17). "Truecaller Server hacking". eHacking News.
30. (2013-07-18). "Truecaller Statement post hacking". Truecaller.
31. (8 May 2015). "Cyanogen Taps Truecaller in Effort to Build a Better Mobile OS {{!}} Mobile {{!}} LinuxInsider".
32. De, Pallab. "How Truecaller Finds Numbers {{!}} How to Remove Your Number from Truecaller".
33. (26 November 2019). "Researcher Discovered A Critical Security Flaw In The Truecaller App".
34. "Security Flaw In Android, iOS Phone App: 'Immediate Fix' For 150 Million Users".