The company which crossed 500 million global users in April 2026, listed Nigeria as the most spammed country in Africa.

In 2025, 51% of all unknown calls received by Nigerians were identified as spam or fraud, more than one in every two.

Nigeria ranks 8th globally and sits at the top of the African league table, ahead of South Africa (30%), Kenya (around 15%), Ghana (around 11%), and Ethiopia (around 9%).

What makes Nigeria’s story different is who is making the calls. In Indonesia and Mexico, financial services impersonation is the dominant lure, accounting for over 40% of spam. In Chile, automated debt collection drives 38% of all spam.

In Nigeria, the dominant category is Telecom and operator-linked outreach, which accounts for 35% of all spam, the highest single-category concentration of any African market in the report. Sales and telemarketing follow at 10%, with scams at 6%.

The implication for Nigerian users is sharp. When automated outreach from carriers and unverified third-party agents dominates the calls landing on a Nigerian SIM, the lines between a legitimate service update, a promotional push, and outright fraud begin to collapse.

A user can no longer reliably tell whether an unknown call is the network confirming a data plan, a third party selling a loan, or a scammer wearing a familiar operator’s face.

The same pattern shows up in Brazil, the only other major market where operator-linked calls dominate the spam landscape.

The Nigerian numbers sit inside a larger global story. Indonesia is the most spammed country in the world, with 79% of unknown calls flagged as spam in 2025. Chile follows at 70%, up from 51% in just six months.

Vietnam, Brazil, and India round out the global top five. Across South America and Southeast Asia, automated systems now drive more than 70% of unknown calls in some markets. In late 2025, the combined Middle East and Africa region crossed 100 million monthly active users on Truecaller, with Africa representing one of the platform’s fastest-growing communities.

The cost of this saturation is rarely a single fraudulent transfer. It is a slow erosion of trust in the phone itself. When most unknown calls are spam, people stop answering.

Doctors, schools, dispatch riders, banks, and legitimate Nigerian businesses then compete for attention on a device that experience has trained users to ignore.

Missed calls become missed appointments, delayed information, dropped revenue, and customer relationships that quietly fade away.

“The scale of what this data shows should concern everyone. Fraud, impersonation, and scams are affecting people’s daily lives in a way we have never seen before. In some countries, most unknown calls are now spam, that is a fundamental breakdown in how communication works. Our mission is to build trust in communication, and in 2026, we are focused on stopping fraud before it reaches people,” said Rishit Jhunjhunwala, CEO of Truecaller.

On March 31, 2026, Truecaller crossed 500 million monthly active users, with more than 150 million outside India.

The full Spam and Fraud Report, including the complete top 10 ranking and regional breakdown, is available at the Truecaller Insights page.

The caller ID and spam-blocking platform has long been at the forefront in India, but its fastest-growing markets are now elsewhere.

CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala confirmed this change, saying, “As before, we continue to see steady growth in our largest market, India, but the fastest relative growth is in markets outside of India. So far in 2025, we see strong growth trends in Latin America, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Malaysia, and the U.S., to mention a few markets.”

India, Truecaller’s biggest market, is working on its own caller ID system through mobile carriers, potentially cutting into Truecaller’s top place. Nonetheless, the company is focused on expanding its features beyond basic caller identification, integrating call recording, transcription, and an AI-powered assistant for call screening.

The company also reported strong financials for Q4 2024, maintaining an average of 429.4 million active users per month. Net sales rose 23%, while profit after tax jumped 29% year-over-year.

Earlier this year, Truecaller improved its iOS functionality, addressing previous limitations caused by Apple’s operating system restrictions. Before the update, its live caller ID feature worked far better on Android than on iPhones.

The update takes full advantage of Apple’s newly introduced Live Caller ID Lookup framework in iOS 18. This system allows third-party apps like Truecaller to securely retrieve caller information without compromising privacy, using advanced encryption technology. 

The feature ensures that iPhone users can now enjoy the same caller identification abilities that Android users have had access to, ensuring users stay safe.

Rishit Jhunjhunwala, CEO of Truecaller, said, “We are excited to bring the full power of Truecaller to iPhone. We see tremendous potential and growth in our iPhone user base, and parity with Truecaller’s Android experience has been top of their wishlist. This update does that and more while preserving privacy for all calling activity.”

Truecaller’s global database, combined with its latest artificial intelligence technology, ensures that iOS users can identify and block as many unwanted calls as possible. The app also allows users to search for previously identified calls from their call history, making it easier to track down nuisance callers.

Truecaller’s premium users will enjoy all of these new features, while free users can still benefit from basic caller identification and number search for verified businesses. 

The new features are being rolled out globally, with the ability to subscribe to a Premium Family plan, allowing users to share the app’s benefits with up to four people at a reduced price.

The update results from the importance of iPhone users to Truecaller’s business. The company generates a huge portion of its revenue from iOS subscribers, with a higher conversion rate to premium plans compared to Android. 

This update will boost Truecaller’s services as improvements could leverage its growing iPhone user base.