Truecaller faces risk in India as government pilots CNAP caller ID feature.

Once hailed as a digital saviour in a country drowning in spam calls, Truecaller today finds itself at a crossroads in its biggest market. With the government pushing ahead with CNAP, a network-level caller identification system, questions are being raised over whether the app that taught Indians to recognise unknown numbers is slowly being rendered redundant.

Founded in 2009 in Stockholm by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam (then students at the Royal Institute of Technology), Truecaller was born out of a simple problem: the irritation of receiving calls from unknown numbers. What began as a modest solution for BlackBerry users quickly expanded to Android and iOS, riding the global smartphone wave. The company, originally registered as True Software Scandinavia AB, would eventually go public, turning a student idea into a listed tech firm.

The app’s early growth relied heavily on crowdsourcing. Users identified callers, flagged spam and helped build a massive database that steadily improved in accuracy. By 2012, Truecaller had found global traction, but its defining moment came two years later in India. As spam calls exploded across the country, the app struck a chord with Indian users desperate for relief. By the mid-2010s, India had emerged as Truecaller’s fastest-growing market, and remains its largest today, with over 250 million users.

Recognising India’s importance, the company localised aggressively. Since 2018, all Indian user data has been stored within the country, addressing regulatory and privacy concerns. A majority of Truecaller’s workforce is now based in India, even as its headquarters remain in Stockholm. In November 2024, the founders stepped away from day-to-day operations, handing over the reins to Rishit Jhunjhunwala as CEO, a move seen as signalling a new chapter for the firm.

Truecaller’s business model has largely followed the freemium route – basic caller identification for free, with revenue flowing from advertising, premium subscriptions and enterprise solutions. Paid users get an ad-free interface, stronger spam protection and verification badges. For years, this model worked, until CNAP entered the conversation.

CNAP, or Calling Name Presentation, is a proposed network-level feature being piloted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Unlike app-based solutions, CNAP will display a caller’s name directly on the phone screen, using telecom databases linked to verified KYC records. The idea is simple: no downloads, no permissions, no third-party access to contacts. Once rolled out fully across operators such as Jio, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea, the feature could fundamentally alter how Indians identify callers.

For users, the appeal is obvious. CNAP is expected to be free, built into the network and arguably more reliable than crowdsourced naming. For Truecaller, however, it poses an existential challenge. Industry watchers believe a significant section of users may simply uninstall the app once the same function is delivered natively by telecom operators, without intrusive permissions.

Analysts suggest that Truecaller may need to reinvent itself in India, possibly by doubling down on AI-driven fraud detection, business communication tools or other value-added services that go beyond caller names. Without such a pivot, its relevance in a post-CNAP ecosystem could diminish sharply.

The company has not officially commented on CNAP so far, though it maintains that user safety remains its top priority.