India tops countries hit by spam calls from banks, rival operators, others
13 July 2017 5:46 PM GMT
Troubled by spam calls from banks offering loans or rival operators doling out more data coaxing you to switch? You are not alone. India tops the list of countries most affected by spam calls, says a report.
According to phone directory app Truecaller, India is ahead of countries like the US, Brazil, Chile and South Africa with an average user receiving over 22 spam calls a month.
Compared to this, customers in the US and Brazil get about 20 spam calls a month, while in Kenya the average is about seven calls, Truecaller said in a report.
"On a deeper dive, we found that there are common categories that tie all these spam calls together. These would be operator, debt collection, bank, political, health, spam, telemarketing, financial service, scam and insurance," it added. In India, telcos and telemarketing accounted for a major chunk of the spam calls at 54 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.
"Many of these operators are seeking to provide special offers for free data, or unlimited calls. Which doesn t sound so bad until you get bombarded by them," the report noted.
Truecaller – which has over 250 million users globally -- used data from its user base to compile the report.
Incoming calls that were marked as spam by users or those flagged by its platform during January-May were considered.
During this period, users received over 5.5 billion spam calls. Mobile phone spam is a form of spam (unsolicited messages, especially advertising), directed at the text messaging or other communications services of mobile phones or smartphones.
India's telecom subscriber base crosses 1.2 billion
The telecom subscriber base crossed 1.2 billion mark in May, according to sectoral regulator Trai. While the growth was led by 6.23 million net subscriber additions in the mobile services segment, it was marginally impacted by decline of 0.14 million landline subscribers. "The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,198.89 million at the end of April 2017 to 1,204.98 million at the end of May 2017, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 0.51 per cent," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said on Thursday.
Total wireless subscribers increased by 0.53 per cent to 1,180.82 million at the end of May from 1,174.60 million at the end of April. Reliance Jio continued to lead the growth momentum with net addition of 4.7 million new customers accounting for about 75 per cent of overall net subscriber addition in the mobile services segment. Jio was followed by Bharti Airtel which added 2.09 million new customers, state-run BSNL (1.35 million), Vodafone (1.13 million) and Idea Cellular (0.19 million). Aircel and Reliance Communications added 0.17 million net subscribers each.
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