Rich Communication Services (RCS) for Business traffic will exceed 200 billion messages globally by 2027; up from 70 billion in 2025. However, growth will be disproportionate across markets, with adoption accelerating in the US following the roll-out of RCS on iOS, while other regions lag despite expanding reach.
The research, by Juniper Research, attributes this disparity to challenges in brand onboarding, which remain a significant barrier to wider adoption.
“While growth in 2025 was significant, adoption varied across markets where Apple introduced RCS. In the US, uptake has been supported by a simplified brand verification process, where brands are familiar with the requirements and onboarding is managed by third-party providers. Across other regions this process has yet to be standardised; making onboarding more complex and time consuming for brands,” says Molly Gatford, Senior Research Analyst at Juniper Research.
An extract from the report, RCS for Business Market 2026-2030, is available as a free download.
Overcoming the barriers to brand adoption
As interest in RCS for Business grows in 2026, the focus must be on lowering barriers for brands to test the channel. Partnering with third-party verification bodies provides an opportunity for operators to accelerate the onboarding process. Simplifying this process will encourage more brands to experiment with RCS; driving traffic growth across markets worldwide.
“Communication Service Providers must also support brand verification by aggregating verification requirements across operators. Managing this process on behalf of brands will help reduce complexity and remove an obstacle to adoption,” Gatford concludes.
What does it mean for telemedia?
This is basically a signal that RCS is becoming commercially viable at scale but the uneveness has direct implications for telemedia across billing, messaging monetisation, subscriptions and customer engagement.
Jumping from 70 billion to 200 billion messages means RCS is no longer experimental, it’s becoming a core A2P messaging channel, alongside SMS and WhatsApp. For telemedia, that means a new monetisable messaging pipe is emerging and brands will start allocating budget away from SMS toward richer formats. There is also potential for higher ARPU per message due to rich media, buttons and interactivity. In other words, this is not just growth it’s potentially a channel replacement and upgrade.
However, the most insightful finding of the study is that the real bottleneck is not technology but onboarding. Growth is being limited by brand verification complexity, lack of standardisation across operators and fragmented onboarding processes. That’s a classic telemedia problem. Telemedia thrives on low friction and fast ‘go-live’ – think SMS short codes and carrier billing flows. If RCS onboarding is slow, confusing and different per market then brands won’t scale it, even if the tech is better.
This creates a clear opportunity for intermediaries. The report highlights third-party onboarding as a key way around the challenges and this is where telemedia companies can win. There’s a gap for aggregators, CPaaS providers and messaging hubs to handle verification, abstract operator complexity and provide plug-and-play RCS access.
At the same time, the uneven pace of adoption means that strategy cannot be one-size-fits-all. In the US, where onboarding is relatively mature and device coverage is high, the focus will be on scaling campaigns and competing on product innovation and pricing. Elsewhere, success will depend on reducing barriers to entry and helping brands navigate the complexities of deployment. In these markets, the friction itself may sustain higher margins for those able to simplify access.
Ultimately, RCS is not just another messaging channel, it represents a broader evolution toward interactive, commerce-enabled communication. For telemedia, whose core business revolves around monetising user interaction, this is a natural fit. The combination of richer user experiences, improved trust through verified branding, and more seamless transaction flows has the potential to significantly outperform legacy SMS in both engagement and conversion.
The trajectory is clear: while SMS will remain dominant in the short term, RCS is steadily positioning itself as the next major revenue channel. The key constraint is no longer consumer reach, but the industry’s ability to streamline onboarding and remove operational friction. Those who solve that problem will be best placed to benefit from the next phase of messaging monetisation.
