Digital Lifescapes

The global COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the development and adoption of online digital services, including mobile user authentication services. This led to more Fintech solutions growth at a rapid rate from 2020 to 2022, as companies started to adopt one-touch verification. These services enable CIOs and CTOs to increase the level of security offered to customers who are concerned about online financial transactions. However, there are numerous other industry use cases that require increased security measures to protect sensitive data. According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, mobile network operators will generate $27 billion from the termination of Short Message Service (SMS) related to multi-factor authentication in 2022 -- that's an increase from $25 billion in 2021. Commercial SMS Apps Market Development Juniper analysts predict this 5 percent growth will be driven by increased pressure on digital service providers to offer highly secure user authent...

Mobile channels are increasingly important for enterprises to connect with employees, business partners, and customers, with telecom service providers emerging that offer a comprehensive platform that enables the management of this essential tool. Plus, they're now frequently cloud-based solutions. These solutions are collectively known as Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) offerings. There are a number of services that can be considered part of CPaaS platforms, including messaging technologies such as SMS, Rich Communication Services (RCS), and Over-the-Top (OTT) messaging applications. Also offered are push notifications, digital voice services, and email. CPaaS Market Development According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, CPaaS revenue generated within the North American marketplace will reach $15 billion by 2026 -- that's rising from $3.7 billion in 2021. The study found that significant demand for mobile channels -- such as SMS and mobile voice -- ...

Mobile communication channels are important for many enterprises that connect with customers, and new service providers have emerged that offer a comprehensive platform to enable the management of this ongoing interaction. These are the Communication Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) providers. Industry analysts define a CPaaS platform as a solution that enables an organization to communicate with clients via multiple outbound online and mobile channels via a singular platform. There are a number of services that can be considered part of CPaaS platforms, including messaging technologies such as Short Message Service (SMS), Rich Communication Service (RCS) and Over the Top (OTT) messaging applications. Also offered are push notifications, voice services, and email. CPaaS Platform Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the global value of the CPaaS market will exceed $10 billion for the first time in 2022 -- that's rising from $8.6 billion...

Mobile communication apps have experienced significant usage growth across the globe. Modern smartphone software applications provide various forms of voice and data communications that have transformed telecom service delivery. Furthermore, mobile channels have become important for organizations to connect with customers, as online service providers now offer a comprehensive communication solution. These are emerging cloud-based Communications-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) offerings. CPaaS Platform Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the CPaaS market will reach $25 billion in 2025 -- rising from $7 billion in 2020. CPaaS platforms provide a centralized management service for outbound communications including short message services (SMS), over-the-top (OTT) business messaging, rich communication services (RCS) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) services. The study identified the ability to make payments over services such as RCS and OT...

Mobile messaging is evolving. Traditional services include offerings such as carrier SMS, as well as over-the-top software app-based services. Now new offerings based on the Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging standard, and in-application AI chatbots, may disrupt that legacy market. RCS is a next-generation mobile messaging standard supported by mobile network operators that enable media-rich content and payment services. Juniper Research has forecast that total revenues from RCS traffic in North America will reach $712.8 million during 2020. North America will drive 28 percent of total messaging revenue in 2020 -- due in part to the adoption of RCS messaging, and the supporting efforts of the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI) which is a joint venture between AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. While CCMI will initially focus on U.S. market deployment, the technology developed by the joint venture will eventually be available in the broader worldwide mobile co...

There has been a significant evolution in the variety of use cases for mobile Application to Person (A2P) messaging. Historically, A2P was used for alerts and as a billing mechanism and carrier for simple content and services, both for one-off downloads or actions (e.g. voting) and for recurring payments. The latter use case has declined in the past 5 years, due to a combination of the transition to an app-based economy, largely driven by card billing and by regulatory action -- in markets such as the U.S. and the UK -- against the many known fraudsters. However, the near demise of this use case has been more than offset by the emergence of alternative opportunities, many of which have themselves been created by consumer adoption of software apps and smartphones. A2P Messaging Market Development A recent worldwide market study by Juniper Research found that revenues from Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging will exceed $9 billion by 2022 -- that's up from an estimate...

There has been a significant evolution in the range of use cases for Application to Person (A2P) messaging in recent years. Historically, A2P was used for alerts and as a billing mechanism for simple content and services -- for one-off downloads or actions, and for recurring payments. The latter use case has declined markedly in the past 5 years, due to a combination of the transition to an app-based economy largely driven by card billing and by regulatory action against fraudsters. A2P Messaging Market Development The volume of A2P messaging is expected to increase by 20 percent over the next 5 years to more than 2.7 trillion by 2022 -- that's up from 2.1 trillion in 2017, according to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research. The analyst claimed that this growth would be driven by an increase in automated marketing, payments and authentication messages. Note, A2P is defined as an automated SMS message sent from an enterprise to an end user. The research unc...

Mobile network service provider revenue loss from 'grey route' application-to-person (A2P) traffic will amount to $62 billion over the next 6 years, despite the increased deployment of security measures, according to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research. Historically, the A2P service offering was used for mobile alerts or as a billing methodology and transport for simple content and services -- both for one-off downloads or actions (such as voting) and for recurring transaction payments. The study discovered that the high levels of grey route traffic -- essentially A2P messages masquerading as P2P (Person to Person) messages and delivered via non-interconnected routes -- could be attributed by the scale of the price differential between A2P and P2P. Mobile Messaging Market Development Today, the trend has become more pronounced as mobile network operators have offered high-volume, low cost SMS bundles to cope with the challenge of Over-the-Top (OTT) mes...

Mobile messaging today encompasses both the more traditional services offered by mobile network operators -- such as SMS or MMS -- and the popular Over the Top (OTT) messaging services from software application providers, such as WhatsApp and WeChat. SMS usage, specifically person-to-person (P2P) texting, has declined rapidly in many markets, while its growth has slowed in others. However, there are forms of SMS messaging which do continue to see some growth -- in particular, within the enterprise messaging sector. Furthermore, SMS has continued to succeed in less developed regions of the world, particularly those with a large number of feature phones, and those that have low 3G or 4G infrastructure penetration. According to the latest worldwide study by Juniper Research , mobile and online messaging traffic will reach 160 trillion per year by 2019, that's up from 94.2 trillion this year -- equating to approximately 438 billion messages sent and received by users on a daily b...

Mobile network service provider revenue streams continue to be disrupted by alternative providers. As an example, the messaging market is forecast to decline from $113.5 billion in 2014 to $112.9 billion in 2019 – that's a reduction of $600 million, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research . Ironically, messaging traffic is forecast to double by 2019. This is driven by over-the-top (OTT) messaging software applications -- such as WhatsApp and LINE -- seeing a threefold increase in message traffic from almost 31 trillion in 2014, to 100 trillion by 2019 globally. Importantly, the revenue generated from each OTT message is forecast be less than 1 percent of that from mobile service provider SMS and MMS in 2019. Juniper's latest study found that OTT messaging services are facing a struggle to monetize their freemium services. Combined with users switching from SMS and MMS services, this will contribute to a contraction in the overall revenue pot. OTTs ha...

The growth of Over the Top (OTT) mobile messaging offerings has threatened mobile network operator revenues and the market is now at a juncture, with many questioning whether the more traditional network operators are capable of competing head-to-head with those progressive OTT messaging players. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research , revenues from Application-to-Person Short Messaging Service (A2P SMS) -- defined as messages which are sent both to and from a mobile application -- will be worth almost $60 billion by 2018, that's up from $55 billion in 2013. The reach and reliability which SMS affords organizations looking to contact customers and employees remains far greater than many other forms of communication. Secure, Reliable and Ubiquitous Messaging Juniper found that A2P SMS would see growth both in terms of traffic and revenues over the forecast period. For organisations such as financial services or ticketing providers, SMS is the most secure a...

Findings from a worldwide market study by Juniper Research highlights the growing disparity between traffic volumes and revenues in the mobile messaging market. Despite accounting for 75 percent of the traffic -- or 63 trillion messages -- by 2018, Instant Messaging (IM) apps will only generate 2 percent of the mobile messaging market's revenue. It's easy to be distracted by the recent media hype and miss the key significance of this market development opportunity. The service provider revenue from mobile messaging is not the big story here, and neither is the Facebook acquisition of WhatsApp. I believe it's how mobile messaging will transform marketing communications. Let me explain. Impact of Exploding Mobile IM Adoption The findings from the Juniper market study stated that the increasingly high IM traffic volumes are the result of a number of key factors that should be on the radar for all savvy marketers. Chief among those findings is the fact that usage of m...

More smartphone users expect mobile Internet access when they travel abroad, it's a growing trend. Juniper Research has valued mobile network operator revenues generated from data roaming at $42 billion by 2018. This data usage will represent 47 percent of all global mobile roaming revenue, compared to an estimated 36 percent in 2013. Juniper notes that these revenues will be driven by rapidly increasing data usage, as operator migration towards 4G will induce subscribers to take advantage of faster broadband networks, while reductions in roaming charges will spur more frequent and heavier usage. Why 4G LTE will Drive the Roaming Business The new Juniper study found that with LTE deployments increasing and set to grow exponentially in all markets around the world, it will continue to fuel the explosion of roaming data usage. However, they also note that in order to achieve the full potential of LTE roaming, successful business models towards end-users and between mobile n...

Messaging on smartphones is assumed to be secure, but recent reports of new threats to user data integrity has created a renewed interest in the BlackBerry BBM robust messaging service. Meanwhile, independent software developers will offer enhanced app-based encryption solutions for other smartphones. Infonetics Research released excerpts from its latest global market study of short message service (SMS) and multimedia messaging service (MMS) security hardware and software -- such as SMS firewalls and mobile messaging security platforms. "The popularity of SMS and MMS has soared over the last decade, but carriers around the globe are just now beginning to seriously evaluate and deploy mobile messaging security solutions, forced by economic, regulatory, and attack conditions," said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst at Infonetics Research . Infonetics has identified an important trend that is a result of more government regulatory pressure across the globe. Major mobile netw...

For the longest time, text messaging has been a huge cash cow for mobile network service providers. However, the eager acceptance of over-the-top (OTT) mobile device applications is greatly expanding the overall messaging market and comes partly at the expense of legacy text messaging. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, the deployment of competitive Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) and Rich Communication Services (RCS) will likely help network operators retain 65 percent of their former messaging market share. That being said, the many free or low-cost mobile messaging application (app) alternatives available to consumers are still a worrying concern for mobile network operators. Operators can use VoLTE and RCS services, ultimately to retain their subscribers, and also increase revenues that will come with the many innovations from third party developers. The quality of services that VoLTE and RCS can provide to their customers will be as table stakes i...

​According to the latest market study by ABI Research, Western Europe's mobile service subscribers used 3,077 Exabytes in data traffic by the end of 2012 -- that's up by 39 percent compared to 2011. 3G mobile data usage contributed 64 percent of the total -- while 4G services are still attempting to gain more user adoption. "Moreover, 50 percent of Western Europe has a 3G data plan and they are making full use of it," said Marina Lu, research associate at ABI Research . Clearly, some of that data traffic is due to growth from over-the-top (OTT) software applications that have been downloaded into smartphones. That being said, ABI believes that while mobile data usage is gathering pace, a number of other core metrics are very much in retreat. In most countries around Europe, voice minutes of use has contracted up to 4.5 percent quarter-on-quarter. Similarly, text messaging was down between -0.5 percent and -7.8 percent for those countries quarter-on-quarter. ...

While the North American market for mobile network subscription is considered saturated, there's still significant handset upgrade activity. comScore released data that reported the key trends in the U.S. mobile phone marketplace during the three month average period ending November 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 26.9 percent market share. Google Android continued to lead among smartphone platforms, accounting for 53.7 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple iOS secured 35 percent of the market. For the three-month average period ending in November, device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 1.2 percentage points). Apple ranked second with 18.5 percent market share (up 1.4 percentage points), followed by LG with 17.5 percent share, Motorola with 10.4 percent and HTC with 5.9 percent. 123.3 million people in th...

comScore reported the key trends within the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending October 2012. Their latest market study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 26.3 percent market share. Once again, Google Android continues to lead among smartphone OS platforms, accounting for 53.6 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple was able to secure just 34.3 percent. The Android ecosystem has gained significant traction within the media tablet market as well, which likely also helps to drive further adoption -- attracting a huge pool of independent software app developers. For the three-month average period ending in October, device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points). Apple ranked second for the first time on record with 17.8 percent market share (up 1.5 percentage points), followed by LG w...

The cellular mobile communications market continues to attract new subscribers within the African continent -- which in turn is helping to fuel regional and local socioeconomic development. In 3Q-2012, the continent's 54 countries and 1.08 billion people have accumulated 821 million mobile network subscriptions -- that's up 16.9 percent year-on-year, resulting in a cellular subscription penetration of 76.4 percent. In the first quarter of 2013, it's now forecast that cellular phone penetration will eclipse 80 percent, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Given the fact that a significant percentage of prepaid phone users maintain more than one active prepaid mobile subscription to minimize interconnection charges, there is still subscriber growth to be had. "While Western Europe languishes with barely positive overall growth quarter-on-quarter, Africa managed to generate 4.2 percent growth in the same period," said Marina Lu, research asso...

comScore released data about key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending September 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 26 percent market share. Smartphone penetration exceeded the 50 percent threshold for the first time, establishing a significant new milestone for developers who participate in the primary mobile app ecosystem. Google Android led that segment of the market with 52.5 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple accounted for 34.3 percent. For the three-month average period ending in September, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.4 percentage points), followed by LG with 17.7 percent share. Apple continued to close in on the second OEM ranking -- with 17.5 percent of mobile subscribers (up 2.1 percenta...