Operating in India since 2012, Truecaller has established itself as a dominant caller ID and spam-blocking app, boasting 260 million daily active users and 300 million monthly active users in the country.

While the app offers premium membership options, more than two-thirds of its revenue comes from advertising. For FY24, the company reported an EBITDA of Rs 596 crore, underscoring the success of its business model that has transformed a utility service into a prominent advertising platform.

Initially designed to solve the problem of unwanted calls, Truecaller has evolved into a platform that delivers billions of ad impressions to its vast user base. Hemant Arora, VP of Global Ads Business at Truecaller, points out that this transformation wasn’t entirely planned.

“As they say, it’s easy to look back and connect the dots. Some of it was intentional, but much of it developed organically as we focused on solving a real problem,” Arora explains.

“Many tech companies evolve beyond their original vision, and Truecaller is no exception,” he adds.

Truecaller’s journey reflects a common trajectory in the tech world: starting with a specific goal to address a user need, growing a large user base, and later discovering monetization opportunities that complement its core offering.

The company has consistently aimed to improve communication experiences by ensuring trust and safety, particularly in markets like India, where mobile numbers are the primary identifiers.

A Growing Problem
The platform’s relevance continues to increase due to rising concerns about spam and cyber fraud. According to company data, one in three calls comes from a number not saved in a user’s phonebook, and users receive an average of three spam messages daily.

In 2024 alone, Truecaller blocked 56 billion spam calls globally.

This service is crucial in countries like India, where government data reveals that cyber frauds surged by 900% over four years, causing a loss of more than 220 billion INR to scams and frauds in 2024.

The Advertising Advantage
Truecaller is especially appealing to advertisers due to its deep integration into users’ daily routines and its extensive reach.

As mentioned, the company reports 260 million daily active users and 300 million monthly active users in India alone, with over 50% of users hailing from Tier 2 and 3 cities—an attractive demographic for brands targeting markets beyond metropolitan areas.

“From an advertising standpoint, Truecaller offers massive reach and frequency,” Arora says.

“Our platform is deeply embedded in users’ daily lives—before making a call, they see an ad. That makes it valuable real estate for brands.”

The scale of engagement is impressive. Company figures show that Indians spend 963 minutes on voice calls each month, and 1.3 billion SMS messages are sent daily. This results in over four billion daily impressions that Truecaller can leverage to generate business outcomes through its advertising solutions.

This captive audience strategy has attracted over 10,000 brands from various sectors, with banking, financial services, insurance, e-commerce, and telecommunications being the top industries.

Innovation Within Constraints
Unlike platforms centered around video or short-form content, Truecaller operates within a relatively limited advertising space. However, the company places a strong emphasis on the quality of its reach and maintaining a non-intrusive user experience.

Arora highlights that user experience remains a top priority: “Too many ads can be intrusive, and we want to avoid becoming another source of spam. That said, our scale is immense—we generate billions of ad impressions. Our goal is to make advertising seamless for brands.”

Truecaller has developed over 200 custom audience segments for targeted advertising and continually enhances its metrics to help brands track effectiveness.

High-impact ad formats, like the “Roadblock” ad, which takes over the entire app for a day, provide brands with excellent visibility during major launches.

The company is also exploring cross-platform integrations, such as combining television and Truecaller advertising to boost campaign reach.

This strategic approach to innovation allows Truecaller to maintain its advertising appeal despite spatial limitations.

A Diversified Revenue Model
Although advertising makes up the majority of Truecaller’s revenue, the company has also developed additional income streams that complement its core business.

Premium subscriptions, which offer an ad-free experience, have grown significantly, rising by 42% to account for 29% of total revenue, with over 2.6 million paying subscribers.

Additionally, the rapidly growing Truecaller for Business service provides enterprises with verified business identities.

“Truecaller for Business is especially valuable for companies that rely heavily on phone communication, such as banks, e-commerce, and logistics firms,” says Arora.

This service builds trust by verifying business identities, reducing fraud risks, and improving call pickup rates.

This diversified revenue approach ensures stability while enabling Truecaller to remain a leading advertising platform.

Embracing Competition
Tech giants like Google, Apple, and telecom giant Airtel have introduced features to tackle spam calls and fraudulent messages. Truecaller views the entry of these competitors not as a threat but as an opportunity for industry growth.

“We welcome it,” Arora confidently states. “The fact that big players like Google, Apple, and Airtel are focusing on spam detection validates the importance of this space.”

Arora compares this to the short-form video market, where a successful industry depends on the presence of multiple players rather than a single dominant entity.

As more companies address spam and fraud prevention, the entire sector matures, potentially expanding the market rather than reducing Truecaller’s share.

Truecaller continues to focus on innovation, investing in emerging technologies like AI-powered fraud detection and voice cloning identification to maintain its competitive edge.

Establishing Trust on Both Sides
The success of Truecaller as an advertising platform relies on the trust it has built with both users and businesses.

For users, the app offers clear value—research indicates it saves them 88 to 90 hours annually by filtering out spam calls.

For businesses, especially in sectors where phone communication is crucial, Truecaller provides the invaluable currency of trust.

Financial services, e-commerce, and telecom companies significantly benefit from verified business identities, assuring customers that incoming calls are legitimate.

“Trust is at the core of Truecaller’s value proposition,” Arora emphasizes, noting that this extends to advertising. The platform maintains strict guidelines, refusing political and gambling ads, among others, to preserve user trust.

Marketing Strategy
Despite its established reputation, Truecaller continues to refine its marketing strategy. Rather than focusing on brand promotion, which Arora suggests is no longer necessary given their established user base, the company primarily runs campaigns to highlight specific product updates.

“Word of mouth plays a significant role in Truecaller’s growth. Many users install the app because a friend or colleague recommended it,” Arora shares.

“At this stage, we don’t need to market Truecaller as a brand—our user base and reputation are well-established. However, we do run campaigns to promote specific product updates.”

One such campaign highlighted the availability of full Truecaller features on iPhones, which had previously been restricted. For this campaign, Truecaller collaborated with actors Deepak Tijori and Sheeba Chaddha, with ads produced by the agency Talented. The ads depicted the relief and confidence users feel when Truecaller accurately identifies incoming calls.

You said:
with hashtags at last
ChatGPT said:
Operating in India since 2012, Truecaller has established itself as a dominant caller ID and spam-blocking app, boasting 260 million daily active users and 300 million monthly active users in the country.

While the app offers premium membership options, more than two-thirds of its revenue comes from advertising. For FY24, the company reported an EBITDA of Rs 596 crore, underscoring the success of its business model that has transformed a utility service into a prominent advertising platform.

Initially designed to solve the problem of unwanted calls, Truecaller has evolved into a platform that delivers billions of ad impressions to its vast user base. Hemant Arora, VP of Global Ads Business at Truecaller, points out that this transformation wasn’t entirely planned.

“As they say, it’s easy to look back and connect the dots. Some of it was intentional, but much of it developed organically as we focused on solving a real problem,” Arora explains.

“Many tech companies evolve beyond their original vision, and Truecaller is no exception,” he adds.

Truecaller’s journey reflects a common trajectory in the tech world: starting with a specific goal to address a user need, growing a large user base, and later discovering monetization opportunities that complement its core offering.

The company has consistently aimed to improve communication experiences by ensuring trust and safety, particularly in markets like India, where mobile numbers are the primary identifiers.

A Growing Problem
The platform’s relevance continues to increase due to rising concerns about spam and cyber fraud. According to company data, one in three calls comes from a number not saved in a user’s phonebook, and users receive an average of three spam messages daily.

In 2024 alone, Truecaller blocked 56 billion spam calls globally.

This service is crucial in countries like India, where government data reveals that cyber frauds surged by 900% over four years, causing a loss of more than 220 billion INR to scams and frauds in 2024.

The Advertising Advantage
Truecaller is especially appealing to advertisers due to its deep integration into users’ daily routines and its extensive reach.

As mentioned, the company reports 260 million daily active users and 300 million monthly active users in India alone, with over 50% of users hailing from Tier 2 and 3 cities—an attractive demographic for brands targeting markets beyond metropolitan areas.

“From an advertising standpoint, Truecaller offers massive reach and frequency,” Arora says.

“Our platform is deeply embedded in users’ daily lives—before making a call, they see an ad. That makes it valuable real estate for brands.”

The scale of engagement is impressive. Company figures show that Indians spend 963 minutes on voice calls each month, and 1.3 billion SMS messages are sent daily. This results in over four billion daily impressions that Truecaller can leverage to generate business outcomes through its advertising solutions.

This captive audience strategy has attracted over 10,000 brands from various sectors, with banking, financial services, insurance, e-commerce, and telecommunications being the top industries.

Innovation Within Constraints
Unlike platforms centered around video or short-form content, Truecaller operates within a relatively limited advertising space. However, the company places a strong emphasis on the quality of its reach and maintaining a non-intrusive user experience.

Arora highlights that user experience remains a top priority: “Too many ads can be intrusive, and we want to avoid becoming another source of spam. That said, our scale is immense—we generate billions of ad impressions. Our goal is to make advertising seamless for brands.”

Truecaller has developed over 200 custom audience segments for targeted advertising and continually enhances its metrics to help brands track effectiveness.

High-impact ad formats, like the “Roadblock” ad, which takes over the entire app for a day, provide brands with excellent visibility during major launches.

The company is also exploring cross-platform integrations, such as combining television and Truecaller advertising to boost campaign reach.

This strategic approach to innovation allows Truecaller to maintain its advertising appeal despite spatial limitations.

A Diversified Revenue Model
Although advertising makes up the majority of Truecaller’s revenue, the company has also developed additional income streams that complement its core business.

Premium subscriptions, which offer an ad-free experience, have grown significantly, rising by 42% to account for 29% of total revenue, with over 2.6 million paying subscribers.

Additionally, the rapidly growing Truecaller for Business service provides enterprises with verified business identities.

“Truecaller for Business is especially valuable for companies that rely heavily on phone communication, such as banks, e-commerce, and logistics firms,” says Arora.

This service builds trust by verifying business identities, reducing fraud risks, and improving call pickup rates.

This diversified revenue approach ensures stability while enabling Truecaller to remain a leading advertising platform.

Embracing Competition
Tech giants like Google, Apple, and telecom giant Airtel have introduced features to tackle spam calls and fraudulent messages. Truecaller views the entry of these competitors not as a threat but as an opportunity for industry growth.

“We welcome it,” Arora confidently states. “The fact that big players like Google, Apple, and Airtel are focusing on spam detection validates the importance of this space.”

Arora compares this to the short-form video market, where a successful industry depends on the presence of multiple players rather than a single dominant entity.

As more companies address spam and fraud prevention, the entire sector matures, potentially expanding the market rather than reducing Truecaller’s share.

Truecaller continues to focus on innovation, investing in emerging technologies like AI-powered fraud detection and voice cloning identification to maintain its competitive edge.

Establishing Trust on Both Sides
The success of Truecaller as an advertising platform relies on the trust it has built with both users and businesses.

For users, the app offers clear value—research indicates it saves them 88 to 90 hours annually by filtering out spam calls.

For businesses, especially in sectors where phone communication is crucial, Truecaller provides the invaluable currency of trust.

Financial services, e-commerce, and telecom companies significantly benefit from verified business identities, assuring customers that incoming calls are legitimate.

“Trust is at the core of Truecaller’s value proposition,” Arora emphasizes, noting that this extends to advertising. The platform maintains strict guidelines, refusing political and gambling ads, among others, to preserve user trust.

Marketing Strategy
Despite its established reputation, Truecaller continues to refine its marketing strategy. Rather than focusing on brand promotion, which Arora suggests is no longer necessary given their established user base, the company primarily runs campaigns to highlight specific product updates.

“Word of mouth plays a significant role in Truecaller’s growth. Many users install the app because a friend or colleague recommended it,” Arora shares.

“At this stage, we don’t need to market Truecaller as a brand—our user base and reputation are well-established. However, we do run campaigns to promote specific product updates.”

One such campaign highlighted the availability of full Truecaller features on iPhones, which had previously been restricted. For this campaign, Truecaller collaborated with actors Deepak Tijori and Sheeba Chaddha, with ads produced by the agency Talented. The ads depicted the relief and confidence users feel when Truecaller accurately identifies incoming calls.

Author: Aryan chaudhary