The business case for an Application to Person (A2P) messaging market is starting to evolve, with enterprise use cases being developed based on the requirements of informed CIOs and CTOs across industry sectors.
Notably, the commercial requirements of these organizations will emerge in response to marketplace demand and will vary depending on the application and associated use case.
To date, traditional one-way notifications represent the common A2P messaging use case. Looking to the future, that could change as adoption increases exponentially.
A2P Messaging Market Development
According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the total value of the mobile business messaging market will increase from $48 billion in 2022 to $78 billion by 2027.
Juniper analysts found that this 63 percent growth will be driven by enterprise adoption of Rich Communication Services (RCS), with more organizations harnessing the end-to-end encryption and verified sender identities RCS provides to reduce messaging fraud.
RCS is a mobile messaging protocol that incorporates rich media content -- such as high-quality images, videos, and carousels, within a smartphone's default mobile messaging application.
Juniper now forecasts the global number of RCS business messages received will increase from 161 billion in 2022 to 639 billion by 2027, as enterprises in industries handling sensitive data -- such as banking and healthcare -- migrate away from Short Message Service (SMS) to more secure channels.
Moreover, while user verification over RCS acts as a first step in messaging fraud prevention, Juniper notes that malicious individuals and rogue organizations may identify ways to bypass this requirement.
In response, Juniper urges internet firewall technology vendors to prioritize the accurate detection of spam content via multimedia messaging -- including embedded images and external hyperlinks.
Juniper also noted that the U.S. market will represent potential growth for RCS with all tier-one network operators -- including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon -- supporting rich media messaging solutions.
The market study found that the total number of RCS business messages received in the U.S. will surpass 170 billion by 2027 -- that is, assuming Apple introduces support for this advanced mobile messaging protocol on their iOS platform within the next three years.
Outlook for Global RCS Applications Growth
"Apple must support RCS to facilitate smooth and secure communications between mobile operating systems. The RCS protocol is likely to be deployed over the existing iMessage interface on iOS devices, in order to capitalize on user familiarity and maximize adoption," said Scarlett Woodford, senior analyst at
Juniper Research.
That said, let's not forget that the Asia-Pacific and European markets were the early adopters that pioneered first-generation text messaging interoperability. In contrast, North America was a late participant in the initial SMS market growth.
Mobile service providers in the U.S. market can follow the RCS trailblazers in other markets across the globe. Note, that the RCS technology first surfaced more than a decade ago, when the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA) association introduced it to the world.
