Mobile messaging is going to see double by 2017. That’s according to a new report from analyst firm Juniper Research.
Juniper forecasts that New Rich Mobile Messages will generate 83 billion messages annually within five years.
Juniper, however, says that this will be less than 1% of total messaging traffic in 2017. “Older services” like SMS, and already-established IP services (IM, email, social messaging, etc.) will comprise the bulk of the remainder.
RCS messages include joyn-branded RCS-e and RCS services.
Many operators in Western Europe and other developed markets have committed to launching joyn-branded RCS-e services, with Spain being the first market to have witnessed launches already. Juniper’s report assesses the user experience, rollout-out costs, handset vendor support and business models for RCS-e and RCS services, and found cautious optimism amongst many within the industry.
Juniper says that SMS “took 30 years to establish the ubiquity and reach it currently offers.” The report indicates that Joyn-branded RCS-e services will be only five years’ old by 2017, “and there are many hurdles the industry needs to overcome if these and similar services are to achieve the heights of SMS.”
“While 9 of the 10 handset manufacturers are pre-installing the joyn app on smartphones,” says report co-author Dr. Windsor Holden, “more work needs to be done to get chat services onto featurephones.”
To learn more about the projections put forward by Juniper today, click here.
