A month after the maker of messaging app Nimbuzz was acquired by UK’s New Call for $250 million, it has released Holaa, a free call management app for Android devices aimed at emerging markets.

It gives users the name, photo and location of the person calling them and allows them to block calls. According to Nimbuzz, 40 per cent of calls in India, where it is most popular, are unwanted.

The app also creates a central database of numbers that are blocked by users in a certain area so that when someone gets a call from that number, Holaa can alert them that the call could be spam.

Although services like Truecaller and Whoiscall offer similar features, Holaa also offers synchronisation of Facebook and Google accounts with phonebooks and lets users add the data provided by the app to their contacts by using the ‘merge’ feature.

Speaking to TechCrunch, Nimbuzz CEO Vikas Saxena said the app has certain strengths: it takes up less space and will offer additional paid-for features in the future, such as services for SMBs.

Nimbuzz wants to promote Holaa through the Nimbuzz app as well as asking manufacturers to pre-install it on phones, and hopes to target not just India but other South Asian countries, along with the Middle East.

Group CEO at New Call Nigel Eastwood said Nimbuzz “is one of those best of breed applications that is serving real needs for emerging markets,” adding that “Holaa is another, the first one of a series.”

New Call bought Nimbuzz as part of a strategy to invest in India, which has a huge mobile user base, expected to hit 1.145 billion by 2020.