Caller identity company Truecaller announced a web version, named Truecaller for the web, today to provide SMS and chat mirroring, call notifications, and number search functionality. At launch, this will be available only for Android users in India with plans to expand to other territories.
All Truecaller for Android users can link their devices to the web client on a PC or a Mac through a QR code. Users can link only one web client at this time, and there is a 30-day time-out window for when you don’t use Truecaller for the web. Users can manually de-link a browser from settings as well. This is akin to linking the web version of a messenger like WhatsApp or Telegram.
Truecaller is late in rolling out SMS (and chat) mirroring. Microsoft provides SMS mirroring for both Android and iPhone users on Windows through its Phone Link functionality. But nonetheless, this functionality could be useful to quickly reply to a friend or look at one-time passwords (OTPs) for login.
Truecaller already offers number searching on its site but with some limitations. You can search for numbers without those rate limits if you link your device to the new Truecaller for web clients. The web client also shows real-time caller ID notifications for when you get calls.
The company said that there are 80 million people who receive SMS pop-up summary notifications every day. This only means that these users haven’t denied Truecaller permission to read SMS. But it’s not clear if these folks are using Truecaller as their primary SMS client.
Over the last few months, Truecaller has focused on introducing more AI-powered features. Last month, it launched a “Max” feature update for Android users to block all calls from unapproved contacts or spam detected by AI. In February, the company also brought call recording and AI-powered transcription features to India — its biggest market with nearly 259 million users — after launching the feature in the US last year.
After registering lower revenues for the quarter, the company had a 32% stock dip in October 2023. However, the stock has recovered from the low price of SEK24.47 ($2.32) to trading around SEK31.68 ($3) at the time of writing.
techcrunch.com
