Business messaging revenues to reach $78 billion by 2027

The value of the mobile business messaging market will reach $78 billion by 2027, according to a study by Juniper Research which attributes the growth to growing adoption of Rich Communication Services (RCS).

Operators hope this combination will allow them to better compete with the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger and open a new revenue stream.

The value of the mobile business messaging market will reach $78 billion by 2027, according to a study by Juniper Research which attributes the growth to growing adoption of Rich Communication Services (RCS).

Apple RCS

RCS is a natively-supported messaging standard that combines the ubiquity of SMS with the rich media capabilities of over-the-top (OTT) messaging platforms.

SMS revenues were once a considerable source of income that has been eroded by the widespread use of OTT services and inclusive text bundles.

Business messaging is a key target market, with organisations able to send messages that can easily be verified, helping to reduce fraud.

Nearly half of phones will use RCS by 2026, while Juniper expects volumes to increase from 161 billion in 2022 to 639 billion by 2027. Juniper says organisations handling sensitive data, such as banking and healthcare, are expected to migrate traffic away from SMS to more secure channels in the near future.

However one potential barrier is the fact that Apple doesn’t yet support RCS, nor has it shown any inclination to do so at present – despite the best efforts of Google (opens in new tab) to convince it to sign up.

“Apple must support RCS to facilitate smooth and secure communications between mobile operating systems,” said Scarlett Woodford, author of the report. “The RCS protocol is likely to be deployed over the existing iMessage interface on iOS devices, in order to capitalise on user familiarity and maximise adoption.”