Caller ID company Truecaller has started recording and transcribing calls for paying users in India, its largest market. The recording feature is available to Premium users on both Android and iOS, and English and Hindi transcriptions are supported.
The company introduced a call recording feature for premium users in the US in June 2023 and is now expanding the feature to India. The main difference is that due to regulations, in the US you will hear a beep on your receiver when you start recording. That won't happen in India.
If you're using Truecaller on Android, you'll see a dedicated record button in the app's own dialer. For other dialers, Truecaller displays a floating record button.
Image credits: true caller
On iOS, the process is a little different due to Apple's CallKit limitations. If you want to record an incoming or outgoing call, you need to go to the Truecaller app after starting the call and tap on the “Record Call” feature located in the search tab. The app calls another recording line. After that, you will need to manually merge the calls to start recording.
Image credits: true caller
Once the call ends, the app will process the audio and send you a notification when it's ready for transcription. On iOS, recordings are saved locally, but you also have the option to save them to iCloud.
Truecaller has experienced some tough quarters. According to its fourth quarter 2023 results, the company generated revenue of $41.14 million, down 4% year over year. The company's annual revenue for 2023 was $167.34 million, down 2% from the previous year. As a result of these results, TrueCaller's stock price has fallen more than 15% since the beginning of the year.
The bright spot is that monthly active users rose 11% to 374 million, and daily active users rose 12% to 305 million. Indian user base accounts for over 70% of both of them. The company's user revenue increased more than 20% in the fourth quarter, although a drop in advertising revenue contributed to the overall revenue decline.
Truecaller expects customers to be encouraged to purchase premium plans starting at £79 ($0.95) per month or $529 ($6.38) per year, with features such as call recording.
Last week, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released recommendations for caller ID services called Caller Name Presentation (CNAP) on mobile networks. Truecaller said it does not believe the service is competitive.
Stockbroker Numis recently said in a note to investors that TrueCaller may not see rapid improvement in India's advertising market. The company said it is working to increase subscriber revenue.
“Truecaller seems to have started making additional spending primarily to increase subscribers. In the United States, we primarily target advertising-funded users in Latin America and select Latin American markets. Africa,” Numis said in the memo.
“Truecaller's data and iOS products are now properly served in the U.S.” There are many subscribers.Prices in the US are high and the US population is large. For example, people in India are used to paying monthly for services.extra expense To accelerate the growth of advertising-funded users in the market, This is the profit earned there. ”