Truecaller To Set up Shop In Either Nigeria or South Africa

Truecaller has announced that it will make Africa a key priority region and increase its presence on the continent.

At the beginning of November, Truecaller executives will visit Nigeria and South Africa to search for a location to set up their Africa headquarters, and start its recruiting process for two directors to join the company in the form of a Business Development Director and a Sales Director.

Truecaller has become one of the fastest growing consumer apps in Africa and has topped the App Store Charts across the continent for the past two years.

The Truecaller app, which allows people to see who is calling and filter out spam calls and SMS, already has more than 50 million users in Africa. The service helps users block more than half a billion spam calls on a monthly basis in the region, and more than 50% of all messages being filtered is considered spam.

In a recent study conducted by Truecaller, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt rank among the top 20 countries in the world being plagued by unwanted spam calls.

“The tremendous growth we’ve had across Africa the past two years has truly been amazing and yet we feel it is still only the starting point of what is about to come. With the positive momentum, we are confident this is the right timing for us to expand our presence and start engaging more deeply with the eco-system,” said Ted Nelson, chief commercial officer at Truecaller.

Along with the recent announcement of Truecaller Ads opening up for the African market, Truecaller will now be launching its Developer Program for Africa starting with its mobile identity product, Truecaller SDK.

The program enables 3rd party app developers, digital businesses and startups to verify end users quickly and effortlessly by utilising their Truecaller profile with a one-touch and password free experience. Truecaller SDK is available on Android, iOS and web platforms and can be used by any app or a website to instantly onboard, autofill user information, or verify the user’s phone number based identity through users’ consent.

“Truecaller SDK is a catalyst in our journey to becoming the mobile identity platform of choice. The ubiquitous phone number is already the native identity for millions of users both online and who are yet to come online, especially in Africa,” says Priyam Bose, Director& Head of Worldwide Developer Relations at Truecaller.

“For the next billion connected users, the email-based web identity will not even be a relevant option.  With smartphone penetration and digitisation increasing at a rapid pace, we believe it’s the right time to launch our Global Developer Program for local app developers, start-ups and online businesses in the African continent.”