OpenMarket – June 28, 2018
We recently got our hands on the latest report from Juniper Research, ‘Mobile Messaging Executive Summary & Core Findings’, covering 2018–2022. And we’re in it!
It’s a great read and a comprehensive analysis of the industry that takes a look at wider technology trends worth paying attention to. Plus, it gives a really good insight into how the landscape of mobile messaging might change over the next four years.
Here are the best bits from it.
The mobile messaging landscape
The good news is that overall, things are looking pretty bright.
Juniper Research predicts that total mobile messaging traffic will reach 243 trillion messages by 2022.
Three trends in particular stand out:
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is on its way
RCS brings mobile messaging into the modern world. It allows a lot more information and functionality to be included than standard SMS (think app-like functionality all from your SMS inbox), which can be incredibly useful for brands wanting to offer a bit more.
We’ve been talking about the benefits of RCS for a while now, so we’re super pleased to see that Juniper Research predicts a 7000% increase in the number of RCS messages sent by 2022. Called it.
But what we also found interesting is that they forecast this won’t significantly cannibalize SMS. This extra functionality will enhance existing systems, rather than replace them. (not least because of the price – more on that in a second).
All that power and functionality will make RCS an increasingly attractive option for businesses.
Over-the-top (OTT) messaging remains the big person-to-person (P2P) trend
The variety and popularity of OTT messaging platforms mean they’ll continue to be the main way people keep in touch with friends and family.
After all, they combine advanced functionality with a low cost, so it’s an attractive option. And that’s unlikely to change drastically within the next few years.
But…
For application-to-person (A2P), SMS and RCS are king
For A2P functions (things like one-time passcodes or two-factor authentication), SMS (and soon-to-be RCS) has always been the main option. And that’s not likely to change any time soon.
Despite OTT platforms trying to move into the A2P space, Juniper Research foresees that SMS will remain the top dog. After all, everyone uses it, and it’s brand agnostic, simple and cheap to run.
Once RCS gets added to the mix, standard messaging will start to go toe-to-toe with OTT in terms of functionality.
It’s easy to see why it’s likely to remain as popular as ever.
The exact price for an RCS message through an application remains to be seen, but Juniper Research predict between 110% and 240% the price of current A2P SMS messages. Of course, all those juicy extra features will make it well worth it for many brands.
That’s why they predict that even though P2P text messaging is declining, it will actually increase by 3.9% for A2P uses.
And let’s face it, when you get a text these days you know it’s important and read it – unlike all the notifications you get from the umpteen messaging apps you have.
And they had a few lovely mentions of OpenMarket too.
Cards on the table, it was great to see that OpenMarket was included as part of the report.
Not only was our VP of Global Engineering, Daryl Orts, listed as one of mobile messaging’s movers and shakers (no pressure, Daryl), but the whole company was also named as one of only two established leaders in the market. (‘OpenMarket – established leaders’ does have a nice ring to it.)
Juniper Research put together a breakdown of how each company fared for different factors, and we were pleased to be in the top half for every single category.
Mobile messaging matters more than ever
These kind of reports are about more than just us.
Reports like this really are a great reminder that it’s an exciting time to be working in mobile messaging. And they remind us that there’s a lot of new technology in the pipeline to make our work (and yours) even better.
Over the next few years we’ll be able to do a lot more awesome things with messages and come up with new, innovative ways to put all that power to good use.
For brands trying to use messaging to deliver more empathetic experiences, the future looks bright.
(And for us, there’ll definitely be office cake).