Caller ID company Truecaller has launched a call recording and voice forwarding service for paid users in India, the company's largest market. The recording feature will be available to premium users on Android and iOS, with support for English and Hindi versions.
In June 2023, the company introduced call recording for premium users in the US, and is now expanding the feature in India. The main difference is that due to regulations, receivers in the US will hear a beep when the user starts recording. This will not be the case in India.
If you're using Truecaller on Android, the app's dialer will display a dedicated record button. For other callers, Truecaller will display a floating recording button.
Image credits: Truecaller
On iOS, the process is a little different due to Apple's limitations on CallKit. If you want to record incoming or outgoing calls, you will have to go to the Truecaller app after initiating the call and tap on the “Record Call” feature present in the search tab. The app calls another recording line, and then you'll have to manually merge the calls to start recording.
Image credits: Truecaller
Once the call ends, the app processes the audio and sends a notification when the transcription is ready. On iOS, recordings are stored locally, with the option to store them in iCloud.
Truecaller had some difficulties. According to the results of the fourth quarter of 2023, the company generated revenues of $41.14 million, with a decrease of 4% year-on-year. The company's annual revenue for 2023 was $167.34 million – a decrease of 2% year over year. On the back of these results, Truecaller shares are down more than 15% year-to-date.
The bright spot was that the number of monthly active users increased by 11% to 374 million, and the number of daily active users increased by 12% to 305 million. The user base in India represents more than 70% of both. While the decline in advertising revenue was a contributor to the decline in overall revenue, the company's user revenue grew more than 20% in the fourth quarter.
Truecaller hopes customers will be encouraged to purchase the Premium plan, which starts at INR 79 (US$0.95) per month or INR 529 per year (US$6.38), with features like call recording.
Last week, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) published recommendations for a caller ID service called Call Name Display (CNAP) on top of cellular networks. Truecaller said it doesn't see the service as competitive.
In a note to investors, Numis Securities recently noted that Truecaller may not see any rapid improvements in the Indian advertising market. She said that the company is pushing to increase subscriber revenues.
“We believe that Truecaller has started spending more to mainly increase the number of subscribers In the United States, ad-supported users are mainly in select markets in Latin America and Latin America Africa,” Nomis said in the memo.
“Truecaller's data and iOS products are now adequately good for US service subscribers well; Price points in the US are high, and more than the US population For example, in India, people are accustomed to paying monthly for services. Additional spending To accelerate growth in ad-funded users in the market does not exceed Revenue earned there.”
