South Africans are among those in the world receiving the highest number of spam calls‚ according to a new report by Truecaller.

The international phone identification app looked at the top 20 countries affected by spam calls in 2018. It said nuisance and unsolicited calls are on the rise around the globe.

Truecaller users in Brazil receive 37.5 spam calls a month‚ followed by India with 22.3 calls and Chile with 21.9.

The insights study revealed that the 5.3 million Truecaller app users receive a total of 21 spams calls monthly. This is compared to 15 a month in 2017.

"This puts South Africa as the fourth most-spammed country‚ a staggering 71.4% increase in spam compared to findings from last year‚" the report stated.

With the exception of SA‚ in comparison to last year’s data‚ fewer African markets featured in the top 20 list.

"Truecaller has identified and blocked 297 million spam calls in South Africa to date‚" the report said.

The report said 12.4% of all calls received were identified as spam.

Telemarketing is still a persistent problem in SA‚ accounting for 38% of spam calls.

These type of calls usually come from companies‚ insurance agencies and financial services.

Overall‚ the report found that the most alarming trend was that there has been an influx of scam calls - increasing from 1%‚ last year‚ to 20% this year.

"Typical scams include fraudsters trying to collect money for illegitimate reasons."

Source: TMG Digital.