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Indonesia has most spam calls in Southeast Asia, report suggests
Indonesia took the top position in the Southeast Asian region and ranked 16th globally in relation to the number of spam calls received, according to a recent report.
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As the country affected by the highest spam in Southeast Asia, Indonesia noted an average of nine calls per month, followed by Malaysia with an average of six calls per month. (Shutterstock/File)
Indonesia had the highest number of spam calls in Southeast Asia, according to a recent report.
Truecaller, an app that can detect caller ID, contact blocking and SMS spam blocking, recently released its annual report, which noted that 20 countries were affected by spam throughout 2018, according to kompas.com.
Spam itself is a call or short message with unnecessary offers or even related to fraud.
In the report, Indonesia took the top position in the Southeast Asian region and ranked 16th globally in relation to the number of spam calls received, of which 15 percent of all calls received by Truecaller users were spam calls, according to the findings in the Truecaller Insight Special Report.
As the country affected by the highest spam in Southeast Asia, Indonesia noted an average of nine calls per month, followed by Malaysia with an average of six calls per month.
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With 161 percent spam growth in Indonesia since the beginning of 2018, Truecaller found Indonesia's user base had grown to 1.3 million.
The top spammers in Indonesia include 41 percent from the telcom operator sector and 20 percent from financial services, such as banks or credit cards
Calls from insurance companies also made up 20 percent, followed by calls related to fraud and disruptions, where each respectively consisted of 10 percent and 9 percent.
Truecaller has identified and blocked 17.7 billion spam calls globally and has helped identify more than 74.1 billion calls in general for their users.
In the global coverage, Brazil tops India as the country with the highest impact of spam in the world with an 81 percent increase from the previous year. (liz/kes)
