Nigeria has been identified as Africa's most spammed country, with 51 percent of all unknown calls received by Nigerians in 2025 classified as spam or fraudulent. This figure places Nigeria eighth globally and at the top of the African league table, surpassing South Africa (30 percent), Kenya (around 15 percent), Ghana (around 11 percent), and Ethiopia (around nine percent).
Truecaller Data Highlights Spam Trends
The data, drawn from Truecaller, a global platform for verifying contacts and blocking unwanted communication with over 500 million users worldwide, reveals a unique pattern in Nigeria. Unlike other countries where financial services impersonation or automated debt collection dominate spam categories, Nigeria's primary spam driver is telecom and operator-linked outreach, accounting for 35 percent of all spam. This is the highest single-category concentration in any African market in the report. Sales and telemarketing follow at 10 percent, with scams at six percent.
Impact on Nigerian Users
Truecaller explained that when automated outreach from carriers and unverified third-party agents dominates calls to Nigerian SIMs, the boundaries between legitimate service updates, promotional pushes, and outright fraud become blurred. Users can no longer reliably distinguish between a network confirming a data plan, a third party selling a loan, or a scammer impersonating a familiar operator. This pattern is mirrored only in Brazil among major markets.
Globally, Indonesia leads as the most spammed country, with 79 percent of unknown calls flagged as spam in 2025. Chile follows at 70 percent, up from 51 percent in just six months. Vietnam, Brazil, and India complete the global top five. Across South America and Southeast Asia, automated systems now drive over 70 percent of unknown calls in some markets. In late 2025, the combined Middle East and Africa region surpassed 100 million monthly active users on Truecaller, with Africa representing one of the platform's fastest-growing communities.
Erosion of Trust in Communication
The saturation of spam calls has a broader impact beyond individual fraudulent transfers. Truecaller noted that it leads to a slow erosion of trust in the phone itself. When most unknown calls are spam, people stop answering, causing legitimate businesses, doctors, schools, dispatch riders, and banks to compete for attention on devices trained to ignore them. This results in missed appointments, delayed information, dropped revenue, and fading customer relationships.
Rishit Jhunjhunwala, CEO of Truecaller, stated: "The scale of what this data shows should concern everyone. Fraud, impersonation, and scams are affecting people's daily lives in a way we have never seen before. In some countries, most unknown calls are now spam, that is a fundamental breakdown in how communication works. Our mission is to build trust in communication, and in 2026, we are focused on stopping fraud before it reaches people."
As of March 31, 2026, Truecaller crossed 500 million monthly active users, with more than 150 million outside India.
