Truecaller eyes global domination as it hits 500 million calls a month

Though Google and Apple have introduced caller ID and spam protection features for their users in their upcoming OS updates, third-party app Truecaller offering similar service continues to gain popularity. And now the seven-year-old Sweden-based company is partnering with Huawei to expand its global presence.

Truecaller says its service is now being used to make half-a-billion calls per month. The announcement comes four months after the company shut down its Truedialer app and added its features to the core Truecaller app.

Truecaller previously focused on providing its Android and iOS users the ability to know who was calling them. But in 2014, the company launched Truedialer, a dialer app for Android which enabled users to make calls through the app (it only served as the interface for your calls) and see information of people in real-time as they typed a phone number. It also let users check availability of their friends (that is, whether they are free to take a call), duration of calls, and the ability to block spammers. The company also has partnered with Huawei to pre-install the app in the Chinese brand's smartphones. The integration will be rolled out in America, Middle East & North Africa, as well as South East Asia and India by end of September 2016. The move could help Truecaller grow its presence in some of the regions where it does not have a significant user base. As of earlier this year, Truecaller had 250 million users, of whom India alone accounted for over 100 million users. The move comes at a time when Google and Apple themselves have introduced features to block spammers and identify callers on their respective mobile operating systems. Android Nougat, which began rolling out to select Nexus smartphones earlier this week, can tell a user about the caller if the number is not stored in the phone's contacts. Apple is also introducing a similar feature with iOS 10.

But Truecaller remains unfazed. The company earlier said that it would take years for the vast majority of Android users to get to Android Nougat, and smartphones with older versions of Android will likely never get those features. Spam calling remains a major issue worldwide. But in emerging regions such as India, where the telecom regulations and awareness about them aren’t as strict as they are in some other places, people receive many calls from telemarketers. Over 300 million spam calls are placed in India every month, according to Truecaller.