Truecaller Ad Performance Boosts
Truecaller Updates Ad Business: Removes Partner's Algorithmic Flag, Sees Revenue Improvement
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Truecaller says its ad inventory is no longer flagged by its largest demand partner — widely identified by analysts as Google — after a disruption that began in August 2025 and wiped out more than a third of its advertising revenue. Truecaller confirmed the flag removal on June 16, 2026, noting a marginal improvement in revenue, though management warned it is "too early" to judge the long-term impact.
The crisis has been brutal. Ad revenue fell 22% in Q4 2025 and deepened to a 34% decline by Q1 2026. The company lost roughly two-thirds of its market value during the period. Now, with the flag gone and a new ad architecture in place, Truecaller is betting on a structural overhaul to prevent history from repeating.
An Algorithmic Flag Brought Truecaller to Its Knees
In August 2025, Google — Truecaller's largest demand partner — introduced an unannounced algorithmic change that placed a "flag" on Truecaller's ad inventory. The flag degraded ad performance immediately. By December 2025, Truecaller issued a profit warning projecting a 30% drop in Q4 ad revenue. The stock fell 29% in a single session, hitting its lowest price since the company's 2021 listing.
The scale of the damage surprised even analysts. Predrag Savinovic at DNB Carnegie said the algorithmic change was "far larger than we had anticipated," contributing to a 9% downward revision in sales expectations for 2026 and 2027, according to MyBroadband. The core problem: Truecaller historically earned about 70% of its revenue from programmatic advertising, leaving it highly exposed to any single partner's decisions.
Flag Removed, But Revenue Recovery Is Far From Certain
CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala offered a cautious welcome to the news. "Even though it is very early days, I am pleased that our inventory isn't flagged anymore," he said in a Truecaller press release, adding a key caveat: "we cannot be certain that it will not be introduced again." The company observed only a marginal revenue improvement after the flag lifted.
The uncertainty reflects a deeper structural issue. Truecaller's ad revenue dropped from SEK 372 million in Q4 2024 to SEK 255 million in Q4 2025. Analysts at firms like DNB Carnegie say the decline looks "structural" rather than a temporary blip, pointing to the danger of depending on a single programmatic partner that operates as a "black box."
Truecaller Rebuilds Its Ad Engine From the Ground Up
Truecaller is not waiting for Google to decide its fate again. The company is migrating its full user base to a new ads architecture. As of mid-June 2026, 200 million users had been moved to the new system, up from just 30 million in Q1. Full migration is expected by early Q3 2026, according to Truecaller. The new setup treats all demand partners equally in a unified auction, reducing the leverage any single partner holds.
On the sales side, Truecaller signed exclusive reseller deals in March 2026 with 365 Digital for Africa, AnyMind Group for MENA and Southeast Asia, and Integrated Media Tech for India. The company also cut 70 full-time employees in Q1 2026, booking a SEK 23 million one-off restructuring charge, to achieve a 20% reduction in staff costs starting Q3 2026.
Bigger Threats Loom Beyond the Google Flag
Even if the ad recovery holds, Truecaller faces serious headwinds in India, its biggest market. A regulatory ban on Real Money Gaming ads in late 2025 wiped out a key spending vertical. India's telecom regulator, TRAI, is also exploring a network-level caller ID system called CNAP, which could make Truecaller's core feature free for all users — threatening its entire value proposition.
On the bright side, Truecaller's user base surpassed 500 million monthly active users by March 2026. Subscriptions and business services now make up 47% of total revenue, up from 32% a year earlier, according to Truecaller. That diversification gives the company a cushion — but the ad business, once its engine, still needs to prove it can recover without being at the mercy of an algorithm.
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