Telecom operators globally are going to lose $3 billion worth of SMS revenue from enterprises in the coming years. According to a new study by Juniper Research, the OTT (over-the-top) business messaging traffic will go up to 375 billion messages in 2028 from 100 billion messages in 2023. The rise of OTT business messaging will be fueled by enterprises that will be left dissatisfied with the diminishing quality of SMS networks. Thus, the report suggests that in the next five years, the telcos will lose out on about $3 billion in SMS business messaging revenue globally to OTT channels.
Large enterprises and small businesses have already started to leverage OTT platforms such as WhatsApp to communicate more personally with their customers and that too at a lower cost. If the OTT app vendors deploy pricing strategies that attract high-spending enterprises, then they can be swayed away from established business channels.
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The quality of the SMS networks is reducing. Especially, there are frauds often associated with SMS messaging and then there's also the factor of cost. The cost of business SMS is going up every year. All of these factors will push enterprises to try out alternative methods or channels of communicating with their customers. Thus, OTT app vendors must have a great pricing model to attract the enterprises their way.
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The report forecasts that there will be a large increase in OTT business messaging spending for retail. The figure is expected to go up from $790 million globally in 2023 to over $2.6 billion by 2028. The OTT app vendors can integrate data from other retail channels onto their platform to ensure that it becomes a key channel for retailers' eCommerce strategies. If the OTT app vendors can also bring payment capabilities directly into their apps, that would be a game changer as well.
