Bullish about India biz prospects; viewing data protection law positively: Truecaller CEO

New Delhi: Swedish caller identification app Truecaller on Tuesday said it is bullish about the business prospects in India, its biggest market, and does not expect the upcoming data protection law to impact or pose challenges to its growth and business model here.

Alan Mamedi, CEO and Co-Founder at Truecaller, emphasised that the company is and will continue to be fully compliant with Indian regulations, including data protection law as and when it is in place.

Truecaller, he said, is looking at the proposed data protection law "positively", and had, in fact, pro-actively opted for localisation way back in 2018.

Asked if the data protection law will impact the company's growth trajectory in India, or pose challenges given the stringent privacy and consent clauses, Mamedi said, "We don't believe so. I think the biggest challenge for companies will be how to localise, move all servers and infrastructure to India. We did it in 2018." The prime driver behind Truecaller's localisation move was "experience" as proximity of machines to customers speeded up the results.

"Another reason was that since we are in the business of trust, for us it felt like an addition to that...That we are having the data closer to you is the stance we took as a company as well," Mamedi, who is currently visiting India, said at a media briefing.

India is the largest market for Truecaller. With over 220 million active users, the country accounts for as much as 70 per cent of Truecaller's global active user base of 300 million. India also accounts for a big chunk of its workforce.

"We are a full stack organisation in India right from design, to engineering, data science, quality assurance, marketing," Rishit Jhunjhunwala, Chief Product Officer and Managing Director, Truecaller India said.