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India falls to 5th spot in global spam call ranking

New Delhi, Dec 3

India has dropped to the fifth spot from last years second position in global spam call ranking but witnessed a 15 per cent increase in spam calls in 2019, Swedish caller identification app Truecaller said on Tuesday.

Brazil continues to stay on top of the worldwide spam call ranking list.

According to the company's annual "Truecaller Insights Report", which listed the top 20 countries affected by spam calls in 2019, spam calls received by Indian users has continued to increase to 25.6 calls per user/month, which is a 15 per cent upsurge from 2018.

One out of three women in India receive sexual harassment or inappropriate calls and SMSes.

"One of the most interesting revelations that came from this year's report was that 10 per cent of spam calls came from financial service providers, a category that was not listed last year," the company said in a statement.

"With regard to spam call categorisation, operators continue to be the top spammers in India with 67 per cent user calls received for upselling of various offers and reminders," the company added.

However, with the rise of mobile payment systems and a growing middle economic class in the country, banks and fintech-based organisations and telemarketing services emerging as big spammers recording 10 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively.

India has grabbed the 8th position in the "Global SMS Spam Index", according to Truecaller.

Spam messages are primarily received in emerging regions; in India users received an average of 61 spam SMSes every month.

The top three markets that are affected by this form of spam were in the African continent.