Truecaller now has over 100 million daily active users who don't care about privacy

Truecaller, the popular caller ID app, now has more than 100 million daily active users as announced by the company in a blog post. It is a major milestone for a mobile-only product that was first launched in 2009 for BlackBerry devices of the time.

While Truecaller started as a caller ID and spam-blocking service, it has evolved into a full-fledged communications platform with calling, messaging, and payment services over the few years. Some, like me, though feel that it has become too bloated for the primary use case that made it almost ubiquitous in some markets.

The success of the Truecaller piggybacks on emerging markets like India where spam calls are a major nuisance and privacy concerns are low. Most people don’t mind sharing their entire contacts list to gain the benefit of identifying callers and avoiding spam calls. India is a huge market, and the criticism from users in other countries is countered by the large user base in India and other emerging markets.

According to Alan Mamedi, Co-founder and CEO of Truecaller, the service has now become a resource for women’s safety in many countries, for e-commerce and courier services around the globe to facilitate the difficult last mile of delivery, and enabled more businesses to accept online payments.