Operator messaging revenue to reach $88 bn globally by 2025, despite SMS decline
We’ve grown accustomed to using instant messaging apps for practically everything from chatting with loved ones, to instant online shopping, even ordering cabs. This seamless convenience has grown to be a public favorite all around.
However, on the business side of it, it has proven to become astronomically profitable.
According to a recent study by Juniper Research, the global operator messaging revenue will increase from $87 billion in 2020 to $88 billion in 2025. However, the report found that SMS messaging, a long-established revenue source for operators, will fall from $66 billion in 2020 to $61 billion by 2025; owing to declining P2P traffic.
In response, the new research, Mobile Messaging: Future Outlook, Strategic Recommendations & Market Forecasts 2021-2025, predicts that operators will need to accelerate investment into rich media technologies to offset the loss of SMS revenue over the next five years.
It urges operators to capitalize on premium pricing and advanced anti-fraud standards over these messaging channels to accomplish this. The report assessed operator messaging services, including MMS, RCS, and SMS.
Rich media is king for operators
The report predicts that operators will take advantage of the growing interest in omnichannel strategies to foster increased investment in rich media messaging standards, including RCS and MMS.
In parallel, it also urged messaging platforms to emulate the market in the U.S., where the country is anticipated to account for 54 percent of global MMS and RCS traffic globally by 2025. The authors highlighted the ability of messaging platforms in the US to offer a comprehensive portfolio of messaging products; enabling enterprises to leverage rich media messaging for high-value marketing use cases.
Conversely, low‑cost services, such as SMS, can still be used for simple use cases, such as one-time passwords.
Authentication is key to revenue protection
Additionally, the ability of RCS to authenticate enterprises directly will provide more efficient anti-fraud detection and mitigation of mobile business messaging traffic over established SMS traffic analysis.
“Authenticating the source of messaging traffic via RCS is far more efficient at eliminating fraudulent traffic routes than traditional firewalls, however, RCS traffic must still be monitored for malicious and unwanted content. A failure to do so will diminish the value of rich media messaging services in the future,” Research author Scarlett Woodford remarked.