RCS to Generate 18 Percent of Business Messaging Revenue by 2029

A new study by Juniper Research found that revenue from RCS business messaging will represent 18% of operators’ business messaging revenue by 2029, growing from just 3% in 2024. The study identified that depleted trust in the SMS will drive enterprises to migrate business messaging traffic to RCS, to benefit from the brand verification status.

To maximize the long-term growth of RCS, the study urges service providers to ensure price parity with SMS and streamline the verification process for businesses, by offering a standard process across network operators and aggregators. In turn, this will enable RCS business messaging users to add custom branding and increase the acceptance of RCS channels amongst mobile subscribers.

OTT channels, such as WhatsApp, provide the biggest challenge to this growth over the next four years, according to the study. The channel, expected to reach 1 trillion global business messages by 2029, also offers rich media and brand verification capabilities to enterprise business messaging users. To combat this rise, RCS service providers must promote the fact that RCS is native to smartphone operating systems.

“Enterprises have begun exploring alternatives to SMS, and RCS is a key tool that operators can use to combat migration of messaging traffic to channels outside of the telecoms ecosystem. Whilst enterprises’ choice of channel will vary, RCS will remain a key element of an operator’s business messaging portfolio alongside SMS,” commented research author Molly Gatford.