Truecaller enters Nigerian market

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Truecaller sdk brand spur

Truecaller has announced its plans to set up its office in Nigeria and hire local talents as key personals for its operations in the region.

The company held an Africa Launch Event at the CcHUB in Yaba last week Thursday, where it also launched its Developer Program with Truecaller SDK, its mobile identity product for digital start-ups and app developers.

Truecaller SDK enables 3rd party app developers, digital businesses and startups to verify end users quickly and without friction by utilizing their Truecaller profile with a one-touch and password free experience.

In an interview with BusinessDay, Ted Nelson, Chief Commercial Officer at Truecaller said; “In Africa, Truecaller has 50 million registered users which is about 20 percent of the total global number of Truecaller users, so Africa has become very important to us, and we want to establish a relationship with the market, because obviously we need that to understand the market and help us to grow even faster and build our brand in Africa.

That can only be done by making sure that we have representatives in Nigeria and South Africa,” Nelson said.

Speaking at the event, Priyam Bose, Director and Head of Worldwide Developer Relations at Truecaller said; “We see Nigeria as one of the most promising eco-systems in Africa, that’s why we have decided to kick-off our tour here. After engaging with some of the top tech startups and digital businesses in the country, we are even more convinced that Truecaller SDK – mobile identity solution – will help solve many of their challenges when onboarding and verifying new users.”

According to Bose, Truecaller has become one of the fastest growing consumer apps in Africa, and has consistently been topping the App Store Charts across the continent in the last 2 years.

The Truecaller app, which allows people to identify unsaved contacts and filter out spam calls and SMS, has already more than 50 million users in Africa. The service is helping users block more than half a billion spam calls on a monthly basis in the region, and more than 50 percent of all messages being filtered is considered as spam.

The company also revealed that it has more than 6.2 million users in Nigeria, where the user base has grown with over 80 percent the past year.

Truecaller is helping Nigerian users block more than 13 million calls, and 25 million spam SMS on a monthly basis. 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 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 the users’ consent.