The number of blocked spam calls show a 27% increase in Truecaller's "Global Spam Report 2021"

Truecaller, the leading global platform for verifying contacts and blocking unwanted communication, is publishing its fifth annual "Global Spam and Scam Report" - a detailed, global study on how spam and scam affects people and businesses all over the world. In the time period 1 January to 31 October 2021, Truecaller has identified 184.5 billion calls and 586 billion messages, out of which 37.8 billion calls and 182 billion messages were blocked as spam and scam.

"In a time when the ongoing pandemic continues to impact people as well as countries and is now going into a new round of lockdowns, this year's report has shown that not only has the pandemic affected communication behavior but also spam, sales and scam patterns around the world. This is a global problem that is growing, especially in the western world. Truecaller has been able to help its 300 million users to block and identify 37.8 billion spam calls, a 27 percent increase compared to last year. The report emphasizes the larger responsibility that Truecaller has: to understand how spam works around the world and to use that information to better protect people, to improve the user experience and to make communication between people and companies safer and more efficient", says Alan Mamedi, CEO of Truecaller.

Spam and scam remains a global problem and the reason the spam and scam business still exists is because it is hugely profitable for very little effort and consequences.

The report shows that Brazil for the fourth year in a row has retained its title of the most spammed country in the world with 32.9 spam calls per user per month. There is a significant gap between the average number of spam calls received in Brazil versus the second country in the list - Peru with 18.02 calls per user per month.

US citizens continue to experience problems with robocalls, a topic for debate in the past years. The total number of smartphone users in the US is just over 294 million (source: Statista).  Since the Truecaller report show an average of 4.8 spam calls per user per month, extrapolating the figure equates to a staggering 1.4 billion spam calls per month.

The rankings look very different when comparing the average number of incoming spam calls v/s messages per user per month. Cameroon tops the list of countries most affected by spam SMS, followed by Somalia, Tanzania, Congo, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Benin. Clearly, SMS spam is a bigger problem area for users across the African continent.

Truecaller's core market, India, has moved up in rankings from 9th to 4th position owing to a significant increase in sales and telemarketing calls. This year, all categories of sales-related calls make up a vast majority (93.5%) of all incoming spam calls.

During the analyzed period, Truecaller users received between 3.4 billion calls as a minimum in February and as many as 4.1 billion calls in December on a global basis. Looking at the graph below, there is a noticeable increase in total spam calls in March 2021, correlating to when there were fierce new COVID-19 waves sweeping across many developing nations. Spammers and scammers wasted no time in capitalizing on this opportunity. The Truecaller community really banded together at this time, stepping up and marking COVID-related scams with lower numbers over April and May as a consequence.

The full report as well as report graphics can be found here:

Truecaller Insights

Download all Graphics here

Notes & Methodology:

The data in this report was aggregated anonymously from incoming and outgoing calls & messages for all Truecaller users during the period of January 1st, 2021 to October 31, 2021. No context of any calls or messages was read. During this period of time, Truecaller identified 184.5 billion calls and 586 billion spam SMS globally.

For more detailed statistics on all calls and SMS blocked and identified, please refer to the Year in Calling 2021 results here. Please click here to read the previous report from 2020. Due to a slight change in methodology & analysis, it is not possible to directly compare the 2020 & 2021 reports. The previous report from 2019 can be found here, the 2018 report can be found here and the first edition of the report (2017) can be found here.

For more information, please contact:

Annika Billberg, Head of IR & Communication
[phone]
[e-mail]

About Truecaller:

We enable safe and relevant conversations between people and make it efficient for businesses to connect with consumers. Fraud and unwanted communication are endemic to digital economies, especially in emerging markets. We are on a mission to build trust in communication. Truecaller is an essential part of everyday communication for over 300 million active users, with half a billion downloads since launch and close to 38 billion unwanted calls identified and blocked in 2021. Headquartered in Stockholm, since 2009, we are a co-founder-led, entrepreneurial company, with a highly experienced management team. Truecaller has been listed on Nasdaq Stockholm since 8 October 2021. For more information, please visit corporate.truecaller.com.

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