#25 How does Truecaller make money?
From Freemium to Fintech - monetising 250M Active Users
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About Truecaller
Truecaller is a Caller ID and spam blocking app founded in Sweden (yes, not India). It helps users manage all their calls and messages quickly, by filtering out telemarketers, robocalls, and other unwanted disturbances. It also has a community-based spam list updated by millions of users worldwide.
🐣 2009 Founded, Sweden
👩💻 250M Monthly Active Users & 200M Daily Active Users
Fun Fact: More than 185 million (~75%) of its monthly active user base is in India.
💸 $98.6M Raised
How does Truecaller work?
Truecaller collects data through two main ways:
its partnerships with different white/yellow pages throughout the world
through crowdsourced information from its Truecaller community and public databases.
Crowdsourcing information basically implies that when users download the Truecaller app and give it access to their contact list, all the contact lists are combined together into the Truecaller servers (along with the name/email/location). Truecaller’s proprietary algorithms filter out the irrelevant contacts like Mom, Dad, Love, Home etc. and retain the “named” contacts.
When any user receives a call, if they have Truecaller downloaded, Truecaller will match the incoming call number against the database of all contacts + the spam list and find the most relevant contact name that matches the contact.
Truecaller Business Model & Experimental Products
Advertisement Platform
With 250M monthly active users, Truecaller is one of the largest advertisement platforms after Google & Facebook. A majority of Truecaller’s revenue is driven by ads on the platform. These ads are very targeted since Truecaller has access to much more information about the user and the high frequency of using the Truecaller service.
Truecaller has a self-service advertisement platform (like Google Ads) to help marketers create, manage & report on campaigns.
Truecaller Premium & Gold
Firstly, they provide you an ad-free experience and a badge to your profile which you can flaunt for being premium.
Secondly, it includes an incognito mode which allows you to stalk people without others getting any hint. Also, you get to know who viewed your profile.
Truecaller Gold offers even more services like customer support and special caller ID.
In addition to these services, you can request for contacts per month if you are a premium member. Apart from these features, it allows you to record phone calls on some devices.
The cost varies between US$7-US$70 / year for the different plans.
Truecaller API for Mobile Number Verification
Some of the largest internet businesses like BigBasket, Rapido, Meesho etc. rely on Truecaller API to verify user’s mobile phone numbers.
This is an alternate to OTP verification which is unreliable as well as expensive (as per some unverified reports WhatsApp spends ~$100M/yr on phone-number verification through OTP)
If a user has Truecaller already installed on their phones, they can “Tap to verify” within any app that uses Truecaller SDK for login/signup/checkout. This also helps simplify user-onboarding as it requires fewer inputs. This is similar to “Sign in with Facebook”.
As it stands currently, the SDK is free for developers. In exchange, Truecaller gets data about which services are being used by users.
Financial Services (India)
Truecaller Pay - this lets users create their unique Virtual Payment Address (VPA) in the Truecaller app, and can instantly send or receive money using a supported bank. In addition, users can also do prepaid and postpaid recharges.
Loans on Truecaller - Truecaller offers term loans to salaried individuals with Credit Score > 650. The instant loans require individuals to submit identity proof documents along with their bank account details. Truecaller then applies its proprietary credit analysis algorithm to determine the quantum of loan.
Truecaller for Business
Truecaller is also expanding its portfolio with Truecaller for Business, aimed at small and medium enterprises and businesses. This FourSquare-like service will help businesses discover users nearby.
Currently, Truecaller for Business is offered for free. Business owners can create their profiles with information like address, website, email, and opening business hours. These features are similar to what we find in Google Maps.
With a super-engaged userbase, a trusted brand-identity, and a plethora of new initiatives in the pipeline, Truecaller seems to have charted out its plan towards a 2022 IPO.
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