Truecaller is one of the world’s most widely used caller identification platforms, with more than 500 million users. Now it’s entering a more challenging phase as growth slows in its largest market and competition intensifies across telecom networks and smartphone platforms.

Much of Truecaller’s growth has been driven by India, which accounts for over 350 million users, or about 70% of its global base. The volume of spam and unwanted calls has turned the app from a simple caller ID service into a more embedded layer of everyday communication.

That position is now shaping its next phase. The company has introduced features such as AI Assistant and Family Protection to drive monetization, alongside tools like Community Suggestions to stay relevant as competition intensifies. This comes as telecom-led solutions such as Calling Name Presentation (CNAP), dedicated number series for verified business calls, and AI-based spam protection gain traction in India. Meanwhile, smartphone makers including Apple and Google continue to build caller identification and spam-blocking capabilities into their operating systems.

As competition increases, Truecaller’s growth is starting to slow. Data shared with TechCrunch from Sensor Tower shows downloads from India fell 16% year-over-year in 2025, while global downloads declined 5%, marking a reversal after several years of growth. Separate data from Appfigures shows downloads peaked at 175 million in 2021, dropped sharply in 2022 and have since hovered around 120 million annually.

India remains Truecaller’s largest market, but its share of downloads has declined from over 70% at its peak to the mid-50s in recent years, pointing to a gradual shift in new user growth toward other markets.

Truecaller’s shift in growth dynamics is being closely watched by investors. The company’s shares have fallen about 78% since its 2021 IPO and are down around 37% so far this year, underscoring investor concerns about its growth outlook and business model. Chief Executive Rishit Jhunjhunwala told TechCrunch that one of the key questions from investors has been around the impact of CNAP in India. He also acknowledged recent headwinds in parts of the business, without elaborating further.

CNAP, an initiative pushed by India’s telecom regulator and is being implemented by telecom operators, displays caller names based on KYC records at the network level without requiring third-party apps. This overlaps with part of Truecaller’s core offering, but is more limited in scope.

Truecaller’s Jhunjhunwala said the company does not see CNAP as a disruption but as validation of the problem.

“Truecaller operates as a global platform with a much richer and dynamic intelligence layer — spanning spam detection, fraud prevention, business identity, and user context across calls and messages,” he said. “This allows us to go significantly beyond basic caller ID.”

Bharath Nagaraj, director of equity research at Cantor Fitzgerald, said CNAP could slow user growth but is unlikely to materially disrupt Truecaller’s core business in the near term. Instead, he pointed to pressure in the company’s advertising segment — driven in part by changes from Google — as the more immediate challenge.

“If you look at the earnings for the company, 65%–70% of it now comes from ad revenue. And that impacted recently,” Nagaraj told TechCrunch.

In its last earnings call (PDF), Truecaller said that it lost roughly one-third of ad traffic from its largest partner in August 2025 — a partner analysts on the call identified as Google. Jhunjhunwala attributed the drop to an unresolved “algorithm issue,” while CFO Odd Bolin said the partner still accounts for more than a third of total revenue. The company is now adding new partners and building its own ad exchange to reduce dependence on any single platform.

But even moving to an in-house ad exchange may not fully address the challenge. Advertising remains highly competitive, with brands able to spend across multiple digital platforms, said Nagaraj. “You can show your ads on Truecaller, but you can also show them on Facebook,” he said.

In-app revenue continues to grow

The pressure on advertising comes even as other parts of Truecaller’s business are on a different trajectory. Data from Appfigures shows that while downloads have plateaued in recent years, gross in-app revenue has risen sharply — from $600,000 in 2017 to $39.3 million in 2025. It has already reached $13.4 million this year as of April 20.

Monthly revenue generated by in-app purchases on Truecaller is now consistently above $2 million and still climbing, per Appfigures.

Truecaller’s presence on iOS has also grown from less than 5% of its total downloads in 2020–2021 to around 11–12% in recent years, per Appfigures, highlighting a shift toward higher-value markets. The company has stepped up efforts on Apple’s platform, including launching real-time caller ID for iPhone in early 2025 and rolling out feature updates to improve parity with its Android app.

Nonetheless, Apple recently expanded its call-screening capabilities, which could reduce the need for third-party apps among iPhone users.

Another key pillar of Truecaller’s monetization strategy is its enterprise offering, Truecaller for Business, which enables companies to verify their identities and communicate with customers via calls and messaging. The segment has been growing steadily, with revenue rising 39% in constant currency in 2025. Truecaller’s Jhunjhunwala said the company is expanding the platform globally by opening its chat services to partners and offering tools such as verified business caller ID to help enterprises verify identity and reach customers.

Alongside its enterprise push, Truecaller has also been expanding its consumer subscription business, which has over 4 million paid subscribers globally, as more users opt for features such as advanced spam protection, AI-based call screening, and an ad-free experience.

In the past, Truecaller has been criticized over how it builds and maintains its vast database of phone identities. An investigation by The Caravan raised questions about consent and data collection practices, particularly in India, where data protection laws have so far been less stringent. Truecaller has denied wrongdoing and maintains that it complies with applicable regulations, but the debate underlines the broader challenge of balancing utility, scale, and user privacy.

Despite all these challenges, Truecaller sees significant room for growth. The company is focused on addressing the rising complexity of communication, Jhunjhunwala said, as spam and scam calls become more sophisticated with advances in AI. Similarly, it plans to expand across all three revenue streams — advertising, enterprise services, and premium subscriptions — as it looks to sustain growth across markets. Whether that will be enough, however, may depend on how quickly it can adapt as caller identification shifts from standalone apps to the network, and to the phone itself.

Attendees at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show strolled inside the main hall and were greeted by BYD’s Denza Z series convertible, a four-seater with a soft top that neatly folds up into the rear deck. Much of the automobile, including body panels, seats, and structural components, is made of carbon fiber, which helps to reduce weight and improve handling. When things get really fast, a tiny air vent on the bonnet helps to increase airflow and give the car a little extra downforce.

This car’s design was penned by a team directed by Wolfgang Egger, Audi’s former head of styling, who has a keen sense of style. Smooth curves and exquisite features combine to make the car look attractive without going overboard. The doors are beautiful and long, with no handles visible, but the large wheels and brilliant brake calipers provide a good idea about the beast of a car hiding underneath. We noticed one car painted in a wonderful sheen blue-green that looked amazing in the hall.

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Under the hood, or rather, beneath the floor, is a trio of electric motors that work together to drive all four wheels using Denza’s E3 system. And what a power bump, with well over 1,000 horsepower. It can accelerate from zero to sixty-two miles per hour in less than two seconds flat! They used the DiSus-M magnetorheological suspension from the Yangwang U9 and added features such as predictive road scanning and full chassis control, allowing the car to corner like a dream even while the roof was down. The steering is also steer-by-wire, which keeps things feeling quite sharp and responsive.

The car is powered by BYD’s latest Blade Battery, which rests low on the floor and supports Flash Charging 2.0. That means a full charge can be achieved in as little as five minutes at the appropriate charging station. The same battery pack is used in a few different models, providing ample range while remaining smooth on the inside. They also have several advanced driving aids, all gathered under the Eye of the God suite, which supports in day-to-day tasks while also adding some extra safety measures for longer journeys.

The four seats inside the automobile are placed in a way that makes the back row feel functional rather than crowded. A large screen dominates the center of the dashboard, flanked by a digital instrument panel and a wireless charging station. The central console has a neat and easy button layout for climate control and drive mode. The materials seem high-quality while remaining nice and utilitarian, and the tri-color accents on the display model provide a wonderful touch of flair.

Denza plans to ship the convertible to Europe first this summer. Following that, it will make a complete global debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July. In case you’re wondering, the car will also perform some demonstration laps there. They’re still doing track testing at the Nürburgring, and they anticipate to have proper lap times shortly. Chinese buyers will have to wait till after the worldwide deployment is complete. The car will be available in three versions: normal, open top, and dedicated track edition.

In terms of price, it will be significantly less expensive than its competitors. Early estimates in China range between 400,000 and 500,000 yuan, or $59,000 to $73,000. That places the Denza Z in the same category as the Maserati GranCabrio, but with more power and faster charge, making it a really fantastic offer all around. Prices in Europe will be published closer to the time the automobile goes on sale.
[Source]

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

See those circles in the grid of today’s Mini Crossword? All of them will contain the same letter, when you’re done. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Word for “dad” in Spanish, Italian, Russian and Hindi
Answer: PAPA

5A clue: Go crazy, as a crowd
Answer: ERUPT

7A clue: Drink with a red, white and blue logo
Answer: PEPSI

8A clue: Philadelphia M.L.S. team
Answer: UNION

9A clue: Buddy
Answer: PAL

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Make more exciting
Answer: PEPUP

2D clue: Madison Square Garden, e.g.
Answer: ARENA

3D clue: Center of the eye
Answer: PUPIL

4D clue: Lhasa ___ (dog breed)
Answer: APSO

5D clue: Element #50
Answer: TIN

From a Whampoa minimart to Orchard Road: The rapid expansion of Hao Mart under Dr Tan Kim Yong

Once a materials specialist, Dr Tan Kim Yong opted for a completely different career path and opened convenience store Hao Mart in 2016.

Since then, however, the journey of Hao Mart has been a roller coaster ride, fuelled by expansion plans and legal troubles. We take a look back at the journey of Hao Mart founder Dr Tan Kim Yong.

1999: After spending six years as Chief R&D Officer of AGC Multi Material Singapore, Dr Tan Kim Yong founded Advanced Integrated Manufacturing Corporation (AIM). According to their website and LinkedIn page, the firm supplies “Nadcap and AS9100 accredited manufacturing services,” which are used in aerospace, defence, and high-tech industries.

May 26, 2005: As AIM expanded internationally, it became formally listed on the SGX Mainboard in 2005, with Dr Tan serving as Group Chairman and CEO and a substantial shareholder.

2016: In 2016, Dr Tan entered Singapore’s highly competitive grocery space, opening the first Hao Mart outlet in Whampoa. Established with the concept of a “super-mini-mart,” the outlet combines a convenience store concept with the product range of a supermarket.

May 2, 2017: AIM was delisted from SGX due to low trading liquidity, compliance costs, and other factors. Hao Corp—the parent company of Hao Mart—was listed as the offeror of the now-private entity.

2019: Hao Mart began accelerating its retail expansion into multiple formats. Amid the expansion, it filed its first financial statement for FY2019, with a loss of S$2.2 million.

Aug 8, 2019: Hao Megamart opened at The Grandstand. Spanning over 46,000 sq ft, it carried more than 70,000 products, including live seafood, a butchery, bakery, fresh produce, household goods, and branded electronics—positioning itself as a one-stop hypermart alternative to Giant and NTUC FairPrice.

Dec 20, 2019: Another retail format, “Eccellente by Hao Mart,” targeting a more premium, international grocery audience, was launched. Outlets opened in Marina Square, Westgate, and Kinex.

Nov 2021: Hao Mart hits its peak of 51 stores in Singapore. It also signed a 7.5-year lease with department store landlord OG for all five levels of the former OG Orchard Point building. The ambitious deal marked Hao Corp’s biggest expansion yet, bringing its grocery and F&B concept to the heart of the Orchard Road shopping belt.

Mar 2023: Hao Mart reported a loss of S$23.2 million for FY2023, after turning profitable for the previous two financial years.

Aug 4, 2023: OG entered a facility agreement with Dr Tan personally, extending a S$66.2 million loan to fund Taste Orchard’s opening at the former Orchard Point. The loan is secured by a mortgage over Dr Tan’s Good Class Bungalow at Jervois Hill, one of Singapore’s most prestigious neighbourhoods. By this time, the project’s opening had already been delayed by around six months from its original planned commencement in Feb.

Feb 2024: Taste Orchard opens, featuring three floors occupied by Eccellente by Hao Mart, offering a live seafood station, a butchery & deli counter, and an FYI Live Kitchen. Tenants on other floors include Sushiro, BHC Chicken, Killiney Kopitiam, and Warabimochi Kamakura.

Jan – Nov 2024: According to OG’s lawsuit, Hao Mart failed to pay rent at Taste Orchard from Jan to Nov 2024. The supermarket also allegedly sublets parts of the premises to other tenants without obtaining OG’s prior approval, which OG later claims constitutes a breach of the 7.5-year lease.

Dec 2024: Hao Mart stores dwindled to 20, according to its website.

Jul 2025: The cracks start to appear publicly. at the prime location, and Hao Mart themselves scale down operations at the building. The basement supermarket was shuttered, with products moved elsewhere in the building.

Aug 2025: Hao Mart sues PropNex Realty for alleged misrepresentation over the Taste Orchard lease. This kick-started a series of lawsuits.

Sept 2025: Landlord , demanding that tenants move out by the end of the year. The move comes just 18 months after Taste Orchard opened. No explanation is given for the lease termination.

Oct 2025: OG files a lawsuit against Hao Mart for S$6.6 million, including unpaid rent, taxes, and other charges. Hao Mart files a counterclaim, alleging that OG itself breached a separate oral agreement.

Dec 2025: Taste Orchard officially ceases operations, and the premises are returned to OG.

Jan 2026: Hao Mart, Dr Tan, and his wife sue OG for S$57.5 million in damages. They allege a conspiracy by OG to cause loss to Hao Mart by damaging or destroying their business. In the same period, Hao Mart reported a S$49.6 million loss for FY2025, with the financial statements filed belatedly in Jan 2026.

Apr 2026: Media reports indicate that Hao Mart has been reduced to just seven outlets amid ongoing legal disputes, as the company sinks deeper into losses.

• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Hao Mart/Facebook

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle is kind of crazy. The same letter shows up three times. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Read more: New Study Reveals Wordle’s Top 10 Toughest Words of 2025

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter, which appears three times.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Four out of the five letters are vowels, but one of them shows up three times. There are two different vowels: the threepeat, and another one.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with E.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with E.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer refers to something that’s strange or mysterious.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is EERIE.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, April 26, No. 1772, was GLOSS.

Recent Wordle answers

April 22, No. 1768: SNORE

April 23, No. 1769: TWEET

April 24, No. 1770: DRUNK

April 25, No. 1771: WOMEN

I recently wrote about why I chose the Supernote Nomad over other e-ink tablets as my primary reading and writing device. However, while the Supernote handles most of my book reading, it cannot do everything. 

Newsletters pile up, RSS feeds keep rolling, audiobooks need a home, and I need a place to buy ebooks. That means I still depend on a small stack of apps to keep my reading life from falling apart.

Here are the four apps I use every day to stay on top of my reading goals in 2026. 

NetNewsWire: for keeping up with my favorite websites and blogs

If you are not using RSS feeds to follow your favorite websites, you are missing out. Instead of checking five or six sites every morning, or god forbid, creating a news-focused timeline on social media apps, an RSS reader pulls all the new articles into one place. I use NetNewsWire to accomplish this, and the best part is that it is completely free and open source.

It works across all my Apple devices, offers good features, and is fast. There are no ads, no algorithms deciding what I should read, and no social media nonsense. I can subscribe to the feeds I want, and NetNewsWire fetches the articles for me. That is it. I love how simple it is, and I genuinely look forward to opening it every morning with my coffee.

Get NetNewsWire

Readwise Reader: for saving articles and keeping my newsletters organized

If NetNewsWire is where I discover things to read, Readwise Reader is where I actually read them. It is a read-it-later app, but calling it that feels like calling the iPhone “a phone.” It does a lot more.

I save long articles I do not have time to read right away, and Readwise Reader keeps them neatly organized and waiting for me. What I love about this app is keyboard navigation, an easy way to highlight paragraphs, and its integration with Obsidian, my note-taking app. 

It ensures that everything I want to retain is automatically synced to my note-taking app, allowing me to easily take notes on them and flesh out the ideas. 

I also love that Readwise Reader lets me pull newsletters directly into the app. So, instead of piling up in my email inbox and getting buried, they appear in my reader app where I can read them at my leisure.

Get Readwise Reader

BookPlayer: for listening to classic audiobooks

When I am doing chores or traveling, I prefer to listen to audiobooks to keep on top of my reading goals. The app I have been using for almost half a decade to do this is BookPlayer.

It is a free audiobook listening app (with in-app purchases to unlock extra features), and I use it to listen to classic audiobooks that are in the public domain or available for free through services like LibriVox. 

BookPlayer makes listening to those audiobooks genuinely enjoyable. The app is clean, the controls are simple, and it does not ask for a subscription. What more can you want from an app?

Get BookPlayer

Amazon Kindle: for when I have no other choice

I read most of my books on the Supernote Nomad, but not everything is available as a PDF or ePub. A lot of the books I want to read are only available on the Kindle store, so the Kindle app is something I cannot avoid. 

If a book is available anywhere, it is probably on Kindle. Then there are Kindle-exclusive books that I cannot find anywhere else. As much as I want to truly own my e-books, there’s no denying that Kindle’s library is unbeatable, and I still use it to discover and read new books. 

Get Amazon Kindle app

What does your reading setup look like?

These are the four apps keeping my reading life organized in 2026. I am always on the lookout for something better, so if you have a reading app you swear by, don’t forget to share it with us. I would love to know what is working for you.

Apple just might make a big aesthetic splash with its debut foldable. A new leak has added more shape to Apple’s long-rumored foldable iPhone, and this time the focus is on thickness. Renders shared by South Korean tipster yeux1122 on Naver, reportedly sourced from an Apple casing supplier, show the device with a folded body thickness of about 9.23mm. That is slimmer than the roughly 9.6mm figure mentioned in earlier rumors.

The renders also point to a maximum thickness of about 13mm when the camera area is included. That would make the camera module a major part of the phone’s profile, even if the folded body remains surprisingly thin for a book-style foldable. The same leak also repeats earlier claims that Apple is preparing two color options, silver and black.

Just how thin are we talking about here?

For comparison, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 measures 8.9mm when folded and 4.2mm when unfolded. That would still make Samsung’s current foldable slightly thinner in its folded form, but the leaked figure would place the iPhone Fold surprisingly close to a well-established product.

Honor’s Magic V6 and the Oppo Find N6 also fall in the same slimness ballpark as their Samsung rival, and soon, Apple, as well. Samsung’s rumored Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide has also been tipped at 9.8mm folded and 4.3mm unfolded, which would make Apple’s first-ever foldable iPhone thinner, at least before accounting for the camera bump.

What else is on the table?

Reports around Apple’s foldable have pointed to a book-style design with a 5.5-inch outer display and a 7.8-inch inner screen, giving it a tablet-like layout when opened. Another recent claim from Weibo leaker Instant Digital suggested that Apple may include the Camera Control button despite the slim frame.

On the software front, it could borrow some multi-tasking tricks from iPadOS, but don’t expect any functional fireworks like Stage Manager appearing on the foldable. Pricing is still unconfirmed, but current reports have suggested a starting price above $2,000. Apple is reportedly targeting a September 2026 introduction for the iPhone Fold. Availability may be limited at first, and the device could ship later than the iPhone 18 Pro models.

Theo Baker is graduating from Stanford this spring with something most seniors don’t have: a book deal, a George Polk Award that he received for his investigative reporting as a student journalist, and a front-row account of one of the most romanticized institutions in the world.

His forthcoming How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University was excerpted Friday in The Atlantic and based on that alone, I can’t wait to see the rest. The only question worth asking is the same one Baker himself might be too close to answer, which is: Can a book like this actually change anything? Or does the spotlight, as it always seems to, send more students racing to the place?

The parallel that keeps coming to my mind is “The Social Network.” Aaron Sorkin wrote a film that was an indictment in many ways of the particular sociopathy that Silicon Valley tends to reward. What it seemingly did was make a generation of young people want to be Mark Zuckerberg. The cautionary tale became a recruitment video. The story of the guy who — in the movie, at least — steamrolled his best friend on his way to billions didn’t discourage ambition; it further glamorized it.

Judging by the excerpt, Baker’s portrait of Stanford is far more granular. He talks with hundreds of people to roundly describe the “Stanford inside Stanford.” “You sort of join it freshman year or you don’t,” one student tells Baker. It’s an invite-only world where venture capitalists wine and dine 18-year-olds, where “pre-idea funding” worth hundreds of thousands of dollars gets handed to students before they’ve had an original idea, and where the boundary between mentorship and predation is nearly impossible to discern. (The shame of chasing teenage founders, if it ever existed, is gone; not chasing them is no longer an option for most VCs.) Steve Blank, who teaches the school’s legendary startup course, tells Baker that “Stanford is an incubator with dorms,” which is not meant as a compliment.

What’s new isn’t that this pressure exists but that it has been fully internalized. There was a time, maybe 10, maybe 15 years ago, when Stanford students felt the weight of Silicon Valley expectation pressing down on them from outside. Now, many of them arrive on campus already expecting, as a matter of course, to launch a startup, to raise money, to become rich.

I think about a friend — I’ll call him D — who dropped out of Stanford a few years ago, partway through his first two years, to launch a startup. He was barely past his teens. The words “I’m thinking of take a leave of absence” had just escaped his mouth before the university, by his own account, gave him its cheerful blessing to dive full bore into the startup. Stanford doesn’t fight this anymore, if it ever did. Departures like his are an expected outcome.

D is now in his mid-twenties. His company has raised what would register in any normal context as an astonishing amount of money. He almost certainly knows more about cap tables, venture dynamics, and product-market fit than most people learn in a decade of conventional careers. By every metric the Valley uses, he’s a success story. But he also doesn’t see his family (no time), has barely dated (no time), and the company, which keeps growing, doesn’t seem inclined to provide him with that kind of balance anytime soon. He is already, in some meaningful sense, behind on his own life.

This is the part that Baker’s excerpt hints at without fully landing on, maybe because he’s still inside it himself. The costs of this system aren’t just distributed in the form of fraud — though Baker is direct about this, describing it as pervasive and largely consequence-free. The costs are also more personal: the relationships not formed, the ordinary milestones of early adulthood traded away in exchange for a billion-dollar vision that, statistically, almost certainly won’t materialize. “100% of entrepreneurs think they’re visionaries,” Blank tells Baker. “The data say 99% aren’t.”

What happens to the 99% at age 30? At age 40? These aren’t questions Silicon Valley is set up to answer, and they’re certainly not questions Stanford is about to start asking.

Baker also surfaces something that Sam Altman articulates best. Altman — OpenAI CEO, former Y Combinator head, precisely the kind of person these students aspire to become — tells Baker that the VC dinner circuit has become an “anti-signal” to the people who actually know what talent looks like. The students doing the rounds, performing founder-ness for rooms full of investors, tend not to be the real builders. The real builders, presumably, are somewhere else, building things. The performance of ambition and the thing itself are increasingly hard to tell apart, and the system that was ostensibly designed to find genius has gotten very good at finding people who are good at seeming like geniuses.

How to Rule the World sounds like exactly the right book for this moment in time. But there’s a certain irony in the strong likelihood that this critically minded book about Stanford’s relationship to power and money will be celebrated by the same class of people it critiques, and — if it does well (it has already been optioned for a movie) — used as further evidence that Stanford produces not just founders and fraudsters but important writers and journalists, too.