Truecaller Ads expands global direct sales across 15+ markets through partner ecosystem

Hemant Arora, VP of Global Ad Business at Truecaller, talks about the company’s global partner strategy, expanding advertiser access across key markets, and the evolving opportunity in mobile advertising.

Truecaller ads has announced a series of reseller partnerships across regions. What’s the thinking behind this expansion?

At its core, this expansion is about bringing the global scale and unique engagement environment of the Truecaller ads platform closer to advertisers across high-growth

markets.

Today, Truecaller connects over 450 million active users worldwide and has already built strong advertiser demand through the broader programmatic and third-party ecosystem. That continues to remain an important pillar of our advertising business. What we are now doing is expanding direct advertiser access to the full capabilities of the platform across multiple markets simultaneously.

Through these partnerships, we are strengthening our direct sales presence across 15+ markets - including South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana in Africa; Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait across the Middle East; and Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam in Southeast Asia. At the same time, we are also deepening our reach within India’s rapidly expanding mid-market and Bharat ecosystem.

Our partner selection has been highly deliberate. 365 Digital in South Africa and Kenya, AnyMind Group across MENA and Southeast Asia, and Integrated Media Tech across India’s tier-two and Bharat markets each bring strong market leadership and deep relationships within their local advertising ecosystems.

Together, this model combines Truecaller’s trusted communication platform, advanced measurement capabilities, and AI-powered solutions with partners who have a deep understanding of local advertisers and agencies, enabling us to scale advertising in a way that is both globally consistent and locally relevant.

As advertisers increasingly seek trusted, high-attention mobile environments to engage consumers, this expansion is ultimately about bringing the full strength of the Truecaller platform closer to brands in each of these markets.

Many digital platforms compete for attention. How does Truecaller differentiate itself as an advertising platform?

Truecaller operates within the communication layer of the mobile ecosystem rather than within content feeds, which creates fundamentally different attention dynamics for advertisers.

Today, more than 10,000 brands globally advertise on Truecaller, reflecting the platform’s growing role in the digital advertising ecosystem. The platform now delivers close to 6 billion advertising impressions daily, supported by strong engagement levels with an MAU-to-DAU ratio of around 83%.

Unlike most digital platforms where advertising appears alongside content that users passively scroll through, Truecaller ads operate in intent-driven moments. When users open the app to verify a number or identify an incoming call, they are already actively engaged and focused on their screen, creating high-attention touchpoints for brands in a far less cluttered environment.

The platform also sits at the intersection of communication and trust. For over a decade, Truecaller has helped users identify callers and avoid unwanted communication, building what we often describe as a “trust graph” - a network where people can confidently identify and engage with individuals and businesses they want to hear from.

When brands appear within that ecosystem, they benefit from the same layer of credibility and trust associated with the platform. Our research consistently shows a lift in user confidence and brand perception when brands are seen on Truecaller, in addition to the strong performance metrics the platform already delivers.

Truecaller also continues to grow organically, adding close to a million new users globally every week. That combination of trust, intent-driven attention, and expanding scale is what increasingly differentiates Truecaller as a powerful and effective platform for advertisers.

Trust is a central theme for Truecaller. How does that translate into advertising value for brands?

Trust is the foundation of everything we do at Truecaller.

Every day, hundreds of millions of users rely on the platform to identify unknown callers and protect themselves from spam and fraud. In 2025 alone, Truecaller identified over 68 billion spam and fraud calls globally and helped manage more than 9 billion calls every day. That consistent focus on protecting users has helped build a deep level of trust in the platform.

At a time when concerns around ad fraud, misinformation and unsafe digital environments are rising, that trust becomes a powerful differentiator for brands. Advertising on Truecaller places brands in an environment that is inherently brand-safe, credibility-driven, and associated with security and reliability.

That trust also extends to our advertiser relationships. We place strong emphasis on measurement, transparency and data-driven insights, ensuring brands have clear visibility into performance and outcomes.

Ultimately, the trust Truecaller has built with its users over the years creates a more credible, high-quality environment for brands to engage with audiences.

The partnerships span Africa, MENA, Southeast Asia and India. Why are these markets a strategic focus right now?

These markets represent some of the most dynamic mobile-first digital economies in the world today, and they are central to how Truecaller thinks about global growth. Historically, many global technology platforms were built in the US and then exported those models to the rest of the world. Truecaller has taken a different approach — we learn across emerging markets and scale those insights globally.

Across Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and India, the smartphone is often the primary gateway to the internet, which places communication, identity and trust at the center of the digital experience. Platforms built around communication utilities naturally become deeply embedded in these ecosystems.

For Truecaller, these are also markets where we already see strong user adoption and engagement, offering both scale and diversity in terms of user behaviour, advertiser maturity and ecosystem development. That diversity allows us to build and refine solutions across multiple emerging market environments while scaling them globally over time.

Within this landscape, India plays a particularly important role, especially with the rapid rise of the Bharat economy, which continues to expand the country’s digital and advertising opportunity.

India remains one of Truecaller’s biggest markets. What’s the focus there for the next phase of growth?

India continues to be one of Truecaller’s most important and dynamic markets, both in terms of scale and innovation.

The next phase of growth will be driven by deepening our engagement across the rapidly expanding Bharat and mid-market ecosystem, where digital adoption, smartphone usage and local entrepreneurship are accelerating at an unprecedented pace. This presents a significant opportunity for brands looking to connect with new internet users in a trusted environment.

At the same time, we are focused on expanding our advertising and business solutions ecosystem, enabling enterprises and growing businesses to communicate with consumers in a more verified, transparent and trusted manner.

India has often served as a testbed for many of Truecaller’s innovations, and that will continue. The learnings from this market frequently shape products and solutions that we later scale across other regions.

In many ways, India represents the intersection of scale, innovation and opportunity for Truecaller’s next phase of growth.

How is Truecaller ads evolving its advertising offering for 2026?

2026 will be an important year in the continued evolution of the Truecaller advertising platform globally.

Our focus is on building an ecosystem that combines scale, intelligence and measurable outcomes for advertisers. Today, Truecaller delivers over 5 billion ad impressions daily, but in today’s digital landscape, scale alone is no longer enough.

We are investing in stronger contextual targeting, deeper measurement and attribution capabilities, and ad formats that integrate more naturally into the user experience rather than interrupt it. At the same time, we are expanding our AI-powered optimisation tools to help advertisers drive greater efficiency and performance on the platform.

As our global footprint expands, we are also adopting a more market-aware approach, developing solutions that reflect the needs of different geographies, advertiser segments and industry categories while maintaining a strong global platform foundation.

Over time, this cross-market presence allows us to transfer insights and innovation across regions, strengthening the overall ecosystem and creating more effective advertising opportunities for brands operating globally.

Looking ahead, what role do you see Truecaller ads playing in the future of digital advertising?

As Truecaller has grown in scale, our core purpose - building trust in communication continues to shape how we think about our role in the broader digital ecosystem.

In an increasingly crowded digital landscape, advertisers are looking for high-attention, brand-safe environments where engagement is meaningful rather than incidental. Truecaller sits in a unique position within the communication layer of the mobile ecosystem, which allows us to offer exactly that.

Looking ahead, our ambition is to ensure Truecaller ads remains a trusted platform for users and a high-quality growth partner for advertisers. We want brands to see Truecaller ads not just as another media channel, but as a platform where trust, intent and attention converge to create more effective engagement.

Equally important is how we work with our partners and customers. As their businesses grow and scale, our role is to enable that growth through innovation, insights and a strong advertising ecosystem.

Ultimately, our goal is simple: to build one of the most trusted and effective platforms for brands to engage with consumers, and one of the most valued partners in the digital advertising industry.