Short-seller flags risks to Truecaller’s India operations

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Editor's note: Last week, Truecaller found itself as the latest target of American short-selling firm Viceroy Research. The Swedish company is famous for its caller and spam identification app, which Viceroy believes is on the brink of redundancy.  Viceroy Research is led by Fraser Perring, the short-seller best known for calling out the Wirecard fraud at least four years before the collapse of the European fintech company. Recently, Viceroy had also called out Belgian firm Sofina Group for its sizeable investments in Indian edtech giant Byju’s, which Perring believes is unsound and overvalued.  In its 29-page report against Truecaller now, Viceroy Research says that “there is significant short and medium term downside” to Truecaller’s stock, which is listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange.  The company is headquartered in Sweden, but for all operational purposes, India is the “home market”, as the company itself has said. According to its 2021 annual report, around 70% of Truecaller’s user base and revenue came from India. All of Truecaller’s data servers are located here.  Titled “Truecaller’s True Colours”, the report has two main criticisms of Truecaller:  …