U.S. consumers got a bit of a break from robocalls in December, according to the YouMail Robocall Index. The firm said that the volume of robocalls was the lowest since February 2022 and “a stunning” 20% below the 2023 average of about 4.6 billion such calls per month.
The firm, which estimates robocall volume nationwide and in specific area codes, said that there were almost 3.8 billion such calls made last month. That was a 16.3% decrease from November, which was a day shorter. December’s total of 121.6 million robocalls per day (1,407 robocalls per second) was 19% lower than November. During November, the average was 150.2 million robocalls per day (1,738 per second).
“It’s great news that December’s volume dropped so much,” YouMail CEO Alex Quilici said in a press release. “However, December traditionally sees a drop from November, given that robocallers appear to go on vacation like everyone else. We’ll have to see where January lands to know whether there are other factors driving the volumes down.”
The firm also provided annual trends. Overall, volume grew 9% in 2023 compared to the previous year. There were a bit more than 55 billion robocalls in 2023, compared with about 50.3 billion in 2022.
YouMail, which is a free robocall blocking app and call protection service for mobile phones, pointed to both positive and negative trends.
On the positive side, there was a 38% reduction in scam calls, which clocked in at a bit more than 8.1 billion in 2023. The reasons for the decline, YouMail suggests, were the almost ubiquitous rollout of the STIR/SHAKEN protocols and more targeted campaigns by scammers.
The reduction in scam calls led to a decline in unwanted calls from 49% of all calls in 2022 to 43% last year. That equates to more than 13 billion fewer unwanted calls for the year.
The more negative findings were that other categories grew during the year. Telemarketing calls rose 32%, payment reminders jumped 35% and notification calls increased 16%. These increases likely were a response to calls not getting through due to how they are labeled and consumers simply not answering them, YouMail said.
The YouMail Robocall Index figures are determined by extrapolating from the robocall traffic attempting to get through to YouMail’s millions of active users.
Last month, YouMail reported that U.S. consumer received 2.3% fewer robocalls in November than in October.
