Since its launch a few years ago Truecaller says it has attracted more than 100 million users worldwide.

Truecaller is a mobile application that enables users to identify unknown incoming calls and block calls you don't want to receive.

And according to a Truecaller official, in the sub-Saharan Africa region the app has a user base that is over 7 million. At the end of 2014 growth was approximately 500%, compared to the same period in 2013.

ITWeb Africa spoke to Truecaller's chief strategy officer, Nami Zarringhalam about the app and the company's future plans.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: What is Truecaller?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: Truecaller is a service that transforms today's phonebook with a set of smart features to make it more intelligent and useful. Truecaller is a mobile app that lets you identify unknown incoming calls, block calls you don't want to receive, search beyond your phonebook, and make relevant contact suggestions based on time and place – so you never have to leave the service to find the right contact.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: What is the core business of your company?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: The phonebook is a critical tool for billions of people who use it on a daily basis - but despite all of today's advanced technology, little has been done to make the phonebook experience more intelligent, relevant and personal.

Apart from being able to identify anonymous callers, Truecaller lets you block unwanted calls through a community based spam list, where users helps report unwanted/spam/scam calls all over the world. To date, we have more than 100 million users worldwide that contribute to this community. Other features include: search for a number to see who it belongs to, get in touch with new people via name search (premium feature), and look for local businesses.

Unlike other services, Truecaller uses advance technology in combination with a vibrant community to create a better way to search relevant information. For example, if you search for someone's name on Truecaller, it will not list the names alphabetically. But instead, the results will be personalised and based on how you know them.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: Can you explain how the app works?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: There are several pain points that we hope to alleviate for our users. The biggest reason for Truecaller's rapid growth anywhere in the world is that we solve a major pain point for mobile users in the form of spam and not knowing who is calling them. Truecaller can act as their personal assistant by telling them who is calling so they can decide whether they want to answer the phone or not – Truecaller helps you take the right call.

The most important aspect of Truecaller is that the community is based on trust, and it can only be as good as the community makes it. To get the most use and value out of Truecaller, the community has to continually grow and interact in order to keep spam information up to date, verify identities, and add verified contact information. This gives users more power and control over their own mobile phone – be it to block spammers, or simply identifying numbers from people and businesses that you do want to connect with.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: How was Truecaller started?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: Truecaller was co-founded by the current chief executive officer Alan Mamedi and me (Nami Zarringhalam) in 2009 in a small apartment in Stockholm, Sweden. We both wanted a better way to look up the phone numbers of the missed calls we received from friends and family while living and travelling abroad.

Within the first week of Truecaller being launched (at the time as an online forum), we saw 10,000 downloads of the app - this was before app stores were popular, and downloading an app to one's phone was a complicated process. So we knew right away that we were on to something big and that the problem that we were trying to solve would affect millions of people globally.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: Who is your target audience?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: We believe that Truecaller is an app for anyone who wants to better improve their mobile experience. Since we are available on all major mobile platforms, we see the African region as a strong growth opportunity given such high smartphone penetration which is set to scale up even further in the future.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: How has public reception of the app been like?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: Our users are extremely vocal and we understand that Truecaller has become a part of their daily habits. We believe the most important part of creating an app is not just what it looks like, or how it functions – it is how useful it is for the people it serves.

Our app originally became popular through simple word of mouth, and by this kind of excitement of stumbling on an app like Truecaller that will help their daily lives, this type of recommendation from the public continues to grow.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: How big is the company now?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: Right now we have 65 employees with the majority based at our headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, and also one employee in the US, one in Brazil, and four in India.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: And how big is the reach?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: We currently have over 100 million users from all over the world.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: As a Swedish company why did you decide to launch your services in Africa as well?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: In today's world and working with global apps, we have the opportunity to be a thousand places at once, and can interact with our users on a personal level. We have a fantastic support team and marketing team that works hard to localise our efforts and get to understand the nuances of the regions where our app is popular. We also recruit brand ambassadors from different regions, and are looking for super fans of Truecaller in Africa to help make the app work for their communities.

We understand that Africans are very tech savvy, curious, and early adopters. They like to explore, and spread the word of good apps. We see the African countries as a strong growth opportunity given that smartphone penetration rates are rapidly growing throughout the region. We know that startups are a growing trend in Africa, and we'd like to be a part of that and be more involved. Collaborating with network operators, OEM's and ecosystem owners is important, but we also want to engage with local app developers and the start-up community.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: Which African countries are you focusing on?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: We are very interested in all African countries, and at the moment we are focusing on Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: What are some of the trends you have noticed in making your services available on the continent?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: It is a very interesting market. Africans are thinking 'mobile first,' and skipping the landline altogether. There are also quite a lot of unique mobile services in Africa that you wouldn't find anywhere else in the world, which shows the true innovation power of the continent.

SIMNIKIWE MZEKANDABA: Are the other plans for the service in the near future?

NAMI ZARRINGHALAM: Truecaller has become an important technology in our users' daily lives, and we have seen a strong organic growth in this region compared to many markets in the world. One of our top priorities this year is to engage more locally, and increase our visibility throughout the region. We are working with local brand ambassadors to deepen our relationship with small communities as well as bigger cities.

We recently launched a new app called Truedialer, which is a smart phone dialer unlike any other in the market. It replaces your old, slow and boring dialer for the quickest and most convenient way to find your contacts. Truedialer uses a simple and easy to use numeric keypad to help find numbers within your phonebook, and beyond your phonebook through integration with the Truecaller service. What makes Truedialer unique is that it gives you instant access to relevant information about people you are about to call, and fill in your call log with missing information.