Truecaller, the Swedish app that more than 500 million people use every month to screen calls and block spam, is now selling something completely different: mobile data for travellers.
The company launched a travel eSIM this week across 29 markets. An eSIM is a digital SIM card. There is no plastic to collect and no shop to visit. You buy a plan, it loads onto your phone in minutes, and you connect to a local network when you land abroad. Truecaller’s plans run from 1GB over 7 days up to 20GB over 30 days. You buy them through the iPhone app or on the web at truecaller.com, with the web channel opening the product to compatible Android phones from day one. Truecaller is running the service with global connectivity provider Telna and telecom software firm Telness Tech.
The pitch is simple. Travellers either overpay their home carrier for roaming or land somewhere with no connection at all. Truecaller wants to sell the fix to people who already trust the brand.
Why this, and why now
The product itself is not new. Airalo, Holafly, Roamless, and NordVPN’s Saily already sell travel eSIMs, and Airalo alone reports more than 20 million users. What Truecaller brings is reach. As COO Fredrik Kjell put it, rivals “have had to build their audiences from zero,” while Truecaller is placing the product in front of hundreds of millions of existing users. Those are established relationships, he argued, and that changes both distribution and pricing.
The more revealing context is financial, and the launch announcement leaves it out entirely.
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Truecaller is having a hard year. In its Q1 2026 results, net sales fell 27% to SEK 361.6 million. About half of that drop came from the strengthening Swedish krona. Stripping out the currency effect, sales were down roughly 16%. Advertising, long the core of the business, fell 44% as reported, or 34% in constant currencies. Revenue from India, its largest market, dropped 41%. The company is cutting around 70 jobs this quarter and taking a one-off restructuring cost of about SEK 23 million.
The cause is concentration. Truecaller leaned heavily on advertising, and within that, heavily on India. CEO Rishit Jhunjhunwala points to three blows landing at once: India’s ban on real-money gaming apps, which wiped out a major category of advertisers, a problem with a key demand partner that analysts have identified as Google, and weaker business in the Middle East amid regional conflict. The share price reflects the strain. Truecaller’s stock is down about 64% over the past year, and in late March 2026 it hit an all-time low near SEK 9, against a December 2021 peak above SEK 140.
Seen this way, the eSIM launch is not just a new feature. It is an attempt to build revenue that does not depend on advertisers. Travel data is something users pay for directly. The same logic is already working elsewhere in the business: consumer subscription revenue grew 37% last quarter and now makes up 31% of sales, while recurring revenue overall has climbed to 47% of the total, up from 32% a year earlier. The eSIM points that same idea at a new category.
India, Kenya Missing.
There is a notable gap in the launch list. India, Truecaller’s biggest market, is not included. That is likely down to India’s strict telecom rules, which previously saw Airalo and Holafly blocked over fraud concerns. Selling its newest product everywhere except its largest market is an awkward spot to be in, though it is one the company is slowly growing out of. India now accounts for around 60% of Truecaller’s revenue, down from roughly 80% at its peak.
Kenya is not on the 29-country list either. That matters here, because Kenya has long been one of Truecaller’s strongest markets and sits among its largest in the Middle East and Africa region. We have covered how Truecaller built out anti-fraud tools aimed at the Kenyan market before, so it is a country the company knows well.
The one upside for Kenyan users is that coverage is global. A Kenyan traveller cannot buy the plan locally yet, but anyone who buys it in a launch market stays connected wherever they go.
What to watch
Kjell called this the first step in offering “adjacent communication products” to Truecaller’s user base, and confirmed that the Android app and more markets are on the way. The honest question is whether a caller ID brand can convince people to buy data from it, in a category where established players already compete hard on price. For comparison, Airalo’s Kenya plans start around $12 for 1GB, so Truecaller will need to be sharp on pricing to win switchers.
If you travel and your phone supports eSIMs, this is one more option worth comparing before your next trip. For Truecaller itself, the thing to watch is not the eSIM on its own. It is whether moves like this can rebuild revenue fast enough to offset what advertising is no longer bringing in.
