The number of mobile phone users capable of sending and receiving Rich Communication Service (RCS) messages is expected to reach XNUMX billion by the end of XNUMX, which will strengthen the technology's offering to become the successor to SMS.
The mobile email market is dominated by over-the-top (OTT) email services like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, giving significant control to big tech companies and bypassing mobile operators suffering from the decrease in income.
One of the main advantages of these OTT services is that they offer free communication and rich media capabilities, such as image, video and file transfers, while SMS has barely developed since its inception.
RCS Adoption
RCS combines the universality of SMS with rich multimedia capabilities and is supported by Google, device manufacturers and mobile operators who believe the standard can regain market share and help drive revenue growth, particularly in the enterprise market.
Supported devices natively accept RCS, for example in the Android Messages app, which helps drive adoption.
The one essential blind spot is Apple, which has so far refused to accept RCS in favor of promoting its iMessage service. However, Juniper Research forecasts that the number of mobile phone users with access to RCS will reach 2026 billion by XNUMX, or XNUMX% of all subscribers worldwide.
However, analysts say adoption is only part of the battle, and operators need to drive further RCS outreach to win over companies that may struggle with the fragmented OTT landscape as they seek to reach service customers.
He says carriers should offer carriers a simple cost-per-message model akin to the one used today for SMS, while offering new costs for applications like RCS chatbots that will require multiple messages to be sent. For example, carriers could allow carriers to send an unlimited number of RCS messages over a given period.
If the industry is successful, RCS's revenue could grow from US$4 million in XNUMX to US$XNUMX billion in XNUMX years.