Truecaller has appointed Zakaria Hersi as Director of Partnerships for Africa. He will be based at his regional headquarters that will be set up in Nairobi.
In this position, Hersi is spearheading its expansion in the region where he forges partnerships with various eco-system players, the American giant told select journalists at an event in Nairobi where they were briefed on their plans for the region.
Truecaller has become one of the fastest growing consumer apps in Africa, and has consistently been topping the App Store Charts across the continent for the past two years. The Truecaller app, which allows people to see who’s calling and filter out spam calls and SMS, has already more than 50 million users in Africa. The service is identifying more than half a billion calls on a monthly basis in the region, and 50 percent of all SMS users receives is considered as spam.
The company also revealed that it has more than 6 million users in Kenya alone, where the user base has grown with over 35 percent over the past year. The Truecaller app is blocking and filtering out more than 4.4 million calls, and 14 million spam SMS on a monthly basis in the country, with 11% more women than men reporting spam calls and texts.
“Over the years, Kenya has consistently been a top market for us, with some of our highest usage globally, which is why it made sense for us to set up a strategic headquarters in Nairobi. With this positive momentum of growth, we look forward to bringing new, innovative and localized services and offerings, and expand our presence and start engaging more deeply with the tech eco-system.” said Hersi.
Hersi has a background of launching marketplaces around the world, and has helped the Swedish Investment firm Kinnevik launch Saltside in Nigeria where he was the Managing Director. He also had two stints working for Swedish based company Besedo, where he helped open offices in Colombia and Mauritius. During his period at Besedo he worked closely with some of the largest marketplaces (eBay, Match.com & OLX) in Europe and South America, and was responsible for post-merger integration of the company and French AI company IoSquare.
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Late last year, Truecaller launched its Developer Programme with Truecaller SDK, its mobile identity product for digital start-ups and app developers, and announced that they will be doubling down on their monetization initiative, and introduce its Truecaller Priority program in Sub-Sahara Africa.
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