“When was the last time you ignored a phone call without looking at the number?” That simple behavioural reflex is what Truecaller built an empire on. What started as a caller ID tool to combat spam calls is now quietly becoming one of India’s most interesting ad-tech players—operating at the intersection of utility, intent, and identity.
At over 260 million active users in India and 450 million globally, Truecaller isn’t just telling you who’s calling. It’s becoming the place where brands want to show up before you pick up, and sometimes after you hang up. Once a silent passenger, the company’s ad business is now driving the growth engine—delivering over 5 billion ad impressions daily and attracting over 10,000 advertisers a year. But what sets it apart isn’t just scale—it’s timing.
In a digital world obsessed with screen time, Truecaller has carved out a niche in “call time”—those high-frequency micro moments when users are most alert, making decisions, and paying attention. And while Google and Meta are fighting for eyeballs, Truecaller is quietly owning the earworm.
In this conversation with Hemant Arora, VP of Global Ad Sales Business, Truecaller, we unpack how the company is reimagining ad delivery, balancing utility with monetisation, and why its next big play might not just be in ads—it could be in how people connect, transact, and trust through their phones. (Edited Excerpts)
Truecaller has evolved from a caller identification app to an ad-driven platform. How significant is advertising as a revenue stream, and how do you see this evolving?
Advertising has always been the fundamental pillar of our revenue strategy, serving as the primary driver of our overall business growth. This transformation reflects our platform’s evolution from a utility service to a comprehensive digital ecosystem with a core offering of providing safe and efficient communication to our users alongside serving ads & Truecaller for business solutions.
Looking forward, we’re focused on continuously deepening our advertising capabilities specific to industry segments. Our strong first-party data assets and evolving adtech stack will further strengthen our customised offering to advertisers. We’re building a sustainable advertising ecosystem.
With India being a key market for Truecaller, how are advertisers leveraging your platform differently compared to other digital ad spaces?
Advertisers bank on us for 3 things: reach, relevance and results
Reach: Massive daily engagements with over 80% of our active users engaging with our app every day (and multiple times a day). This helps deliver 5 billion+ daily ad impressions, offering advertisers unparalleled reach and frequency.
Relevance: Advertisers benefit from our targeting capabilities, which include over 200+ custom audience segments helping advertisers build personas based on their target audience segments. Our innovative native ad formats, across the marketing funnel solutions, and dedicated white-glove service consistently deliver exceptional and award-winning results for our advertisers.
Results: With over 10,000 advertisers leveraging our platform in the last year, our performance speaks for itself in terms of the results we deliver for them.
What is Truecaller’s unique value proposition for advertisers compared to competitors like Google and Meta? Any category-specific ad performance insights you can share?
Our differentiation stems from our unique position in a user’s life. We are an indispensable part of daily life for our 450 million global active users.
When was the last time you ignored an incoming call without looking at the number? Probably never right! We capture attention during a critical moment, when users are making connection decisions. This creates what we call “high-frequency micro moments” that can deliver exceptional value for our advertisers.
Adding to this massive reach & frequency, is our advanced targeting capability, that ensures higher relevance for the ads we serve. This is why we see 30% to 50% better engagement on our platform compared to typical industry benchmarks.
How do you balance monetisation through ads while ensuring a smooth user experience? Are there any innovations in ad formats to maintain engagement?
User experience is at the heart of our business philosophy. We exist because our users find us valuable. We carefully balance user experience with monetisation strategies that respect engagement. Our ad placements are relevant and non-intrusive. For example, our most popular format (the After Call Screen or ACS), succeeds because it adds value by providing call context, entity identification, and options to report spam or fraud—enhancing rather than interrupting the user experience.
Truecaller has recently introduced a series of innovative ad formats that deliver immersive brand engagement. The Click to experience ad formats on the ACS offer a range of innovative experiences to the users in form of full screen take over video, transparent video and custom games. We can deliver over 1.5 billion daily impressions on these, positioning it as one of the most high-impact advertising solutions available to marketers.
Given increasing data privacy concerns and regulatory changes, how is Truecaller ensuring compliance while still offering targeted advertising?
The data minimisation practices that we use ensure a high level of user privacy. The app only reads and collects data which is essential for the app to function. There are data protection policies present in many parts of the world already and we adhere to all these and more, while providing high levels of transparency and granular control to all users.
What categories of advertisers are driving the most growth for Truecaller? Any insights on which sectors are increasing their ad spend on the platform?
Truecaller is home to all segments of advertisers, providing each with a safe brand environment. We are seeing strong momentum with categories like e-commerce, quick commerce, gaming, mobile OEMs, automotive, real estate & now CPG as well. We expect these sectors to continue to increase their spending.
Looking ahead, what’s next for Truecaller’s ad business? Are there plans to introduce new monetisation strategies beyond advertising?
Our focus as we move forward is built on key strategic pillars:
Measurement-backed productisation of our advertising formats for our audience to make it easier for our customers to buy the relevant solution as per their dynamic business & marketing objectives.
Continuous and organic growth in user base.
Expansion of monetisation geographies across global markets.
Strategic & long term investment in measurement, data enrichment & intelligence.