RCS Business Messaging Traffic to Grow 50 Percent in 2025

A new study from Juniper Research has found that Rich Communication Services (RCS) business messaging traffic will reach 50 billion messages globally in 2025. Apple’s first full year of support for the technology should bring a single-year growth from 33 billion in 2024.

However, operators must partner with RCS business messaging (RBM) service providers which work with enterprises to create viable RBM ecosystems enabling large-scale growth of business messaging traffic. The study predicts that, in doing so, operators will best position their solutions for accelerated growth in RBM traffic in 2026 and beyond.

To achieve this large-scale growth, the study urges operators to prioritize onboarding their RCS services to Google’s Jibe platform in 2025, for increased network interoperability and the reduced investment required to launch services. However, it anticipates a slow onboarding process will delay global RBM traffic growth in 2025.

The study found that RBM will have a significant opportunity for growth in 2026, owing to increased operator support. Apple is also expected to expand RBM capabilities to more countries throughout 2025; driving further growth in 2026. In turn, the report forecasts that global RBM traffic will reach 200 billion messages by 2029.

“Accelerating the growth of RBM in 2026 will also require operators to offer basic RCS messages at the same price as SMS. This will support enterprises’ transition from SMS to RBM for transactional messaging, increasing familiarity with the channel to drive future growth,” commented research Author Molly Gatford.