Business adoption of RCS messaging is accelerating and is set to hit 485bn messages by 2030, up from this year’s 125bn. Growth is particularly strong in the US and India and is being driven by businesses looking to migrate authentication, notification and marketing traffic to the channel.
According to the latest data from Juniper Research, one of the key trends is the migration of SMS traffic to RCS for Business traffic; however, the motivation for enterprises to do so will differ depending on the industry and use case. Juniper Research expects the following trends for each use case where Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS is currently used:
- OTPs: Brands in industries that are susceptible to spoofing, such as banks and logistics, are expected to look to reduce the risk of sending SMS One-Time Passwords (OTPs) by sending these across RCS for Business instead; providing trust to the customer that they are receiving this from a verified business. This will limit the potential of fraudsters to engineer moments where the user mistakenly believes a code relates to a legitimate action; making impersonation more challenging. Brands will also look to send OTPs across RCS for Business due to the faster delivery; reducing the number of customers requesting a repeat OTP as a result of the slower delivery of SMS.
- Notifications/Alerts: For this use case, verification will also be a priority to brands uplifting existing SMS communications to RCS. Similar to OTPs, fraudsters leverage SMS to spoof businesses and gain access to information, which can result in account takeovers and financial losses. By using a verified channel, customers learn to trust communications originating from a verified brand and be cautious of those which do not. Banks will be among the first to uplift notifications and alerts from SMS to RCS for Business to protect customers.
- Marketing: Juniper Research anticipates retail and eCommerce brands to be among the fastest to adopt RCS for Business for the marketing use case. RCS’ branding and rich media are key capabilities that will attract brands to using the channel, since this offers greater potential for designing campaigns that lead to conversions. For this use case, vendors must emphasise that brands gain access to a wider number of metrics on RCS compared with SMS. These metrics will provide greater insight into marketing campaigns that result in conversions and allow brands to adjust their strategy in future.
| An extract from the report, RCS for Business Market 2026-2030, is available as a free download |
US and India drive growth
The US is expected to be a leader of RCS adoption, following the pattern of how businesses have historically used SMS. A2P SMS has been huge in the US, due to low costs and stable pricing; creating an ecosystem that strongly supports operator-led messaging channels.
Juniper expects businesses in the US to migrate traffic from SMS to RCS faster than other countries, with all major operators now on board. Additionally, operators have now implemented pricing models for RCS that are unique to the US and also should support growth.
In 2025, there was substantial growth in RCS for Business traffic in the US, growing to 3.2bn from 494mn in 2024; a growth of more than 500%. In May 2025, Google reported that more than 1bn RCS messages are sent daily in the US alone and Juniper Research believes this number will have increased towards the end of 2025.
Whilst a large proportion of this traffic will be Person-to-Person (P2P) RCS, this demonstrates the demand for a native rich-media messaging channel and will encourage enterprise adoption for business messaging use cases.
India, meanwhile, experienced strong growth in RCS for Business traffic over the last two years. In August 2025, Apple partnered with Jio to bring RCS messaging to iPhones for Jio users in India. Additionally, in December 2025, Bharti Airtel joined forces with Google to offer RCS messaging to its mobile subscribers. As part of this, Google agreed to integrate RCS with Airtel’s AI-enabled spam filter. Airtel is the last of the three major operators in India to introduce RCS; expanding the reach of the messaging channel in the country.
In turn, the number of RCS for Business-capable subscribers in India saw growth of 8.8% between 2024 and 2025.
Juniper anticipates roll-out of RCS on iOS devices across the other major mobile operators in India in 2026; further expanding its reach. The number of RCS for Business-capable subscribers in India is therefore expected to experience a further growth of 18.5% in 2026.
Retail, healthcare and banking growing rapidly
The report identifies retail as being the largest single vertical for business RCS messages through the forecast period; accounting for over 30% of messages sent globally by 2030. However, this represents a decline from over 37% in 2026; reflecting that retail adopted RCS earlier than other verticals.
Indeed, healthcare and banking will grow by over 1000% and 600% respectively by 2030, versus just over 200% for retail; showing how momentum is shifting.
Principal Analyst, Peter Boyland, comments: “Authentication is clearly a major use case within retail for secure customer authentication, but this is also a clear requirement for banks and healthcare providers. Particularly within banking, branding and personalisation is increasingly important to customer retention; making RCS the perfect fit.”
