Nigeria has become the most spammed country in Africa, with more than half of all unknown calls received by users in 2025 identified as spam or fraud, according to new data from call identification platform Truecaller.
The company’s latest Spam and Fraud Report found that 51 percent of unknown calls in Nigeria were flagged as unwanted or potentially malicious last year, placing the country eighth globally and ahead of all other African nations. South Africa recorded 30 percent, Kenya approximately 15 percent, Ghana around 11 percent, and Ethiopia roughly 9 percent.
Globally, Indonesia leads with 79 percent of unknown calls classified as spam in 2025, followed by Chile at 70 percent, a sharp rise from 51 percent within just six months. Vietnam, Brazil, and India round out the top five most spammed countries worldwide. Across parts of South America and Southeast Asia, automated systems now generate more than 70 percent of unknown calls.
What distinguishes Nigeria from other high-spam markets is the composition of those calls. The report noted that telecom and operator-related outreach accounts for 35 percent of all spam calls in the country, the highest concentration of any African market surveyed. Telemarketing and sales calls follow at 10 percent, while outright scam attempts make up 6 percent.
“In many countries, spam is driven largely by financial impersonation scams or aggressive debt collection,” the report stated. “In Nigeria, however, telecom and operator-related outreach dominates the landscape.”
This structure creates a particularly disorienting experience for users. When a significant share of unsolicited calls appears to originate from telecom-related services or agents, distinguishing legitimate network updates from fraudulent attempts becomes difficult. The overlap blurs the line between official communication and deception, increasing the risk that users either engage with suspicious calls or dismiss important ones.
Brazil is the only other country where operator-linked outreach similarly dominates spam activity, suggesting that large telecom ecosystems in certain markets may be inadvertently driving the problem rather than containing it.
