Despite mobile messaging demand growing, SMS’s market share by value will reduce to 32% of global mobile messaging revenue by 2029; down from 45% in 2024.
According to data from Juniper Research, fraudulent SMS activity, excessive pricing and the availability of richer alternatives as driving the decline of SMS. Together, these are prompting enterprises to seek alternative channels for communications.
This 13% drop occurs at a time when the demand for mobile messaging traffic is increasing significantly, growing from 189 trillion messages sent in 2024 to 280 trillion in 2029.
The study urges operators to reduce the price point of A2P (Application-to-Person) SMS through regulated international delivery rates, stabilising pricing to ensure they capitalise on the growing demand for messaging.
An extract from the new report, Global Mobile Messaging Market 2024-2029, is now available as a free download.
RCS versus OTT messaging
The study identified RCS and OTT as the channels expected to disrupt the future mobile messaging market, providing feature-rich content and improved security. However, Juniper Research advised that mobile messaging vendors must proactively ensure fraud prevention through universal RCS standards and interoperable verification over OTT messaging channels. This, they say, will ensure that high-spending enterprises find appeal in these rich media channels.
Research author Georgia Allen says: “RCS and OTT messaging capitalise on a growing demand for conversational messaging among users. In response, operators must guarantee that the pricing of RCS is more competitive than that of SMS to avoid losing out to OTT messaging. OTT messaging co-existed with SMS, and we are anticipating a similar trend with RCS and OTT messaging”.
