This will account for over 40% of global mobile subscribing, representing growth of over 200%.
RCS is a protocol for rich media messaging over operator networks that provides advanced business messaging services such as chatbots and payments.
However, the new report, titled ‘RCS Business Messaging: Monetisation Models, Competitor Leaderboard and Market Forecasts 2022-2026’ predicts that OTT messaging apps, which control their own development, will provide fierce competition for rich media business messaging traffic.
Operators must promote greater reach of RCS to subscribers over the fragmented OTT ecosystem to combat this threat and demonstrate its value.
Despite the competition from OTT apps, the research forecasts global operator revenue from RCS will grow from $230 million in 2022 to over $4.6 billion by 2026.
The report recommends that RCS providers offer a simple price-per-message monetisation model that has already been established through the use of SMS business messaging.
However, the research predicts that an increasing focus on omnichannel retail will drive deployments of chatbots services in RCS messaging apps.
This will require RCS platforms to offer ne monetisation models such as the session-based model where brands pay for unlimited messages to a subscriber over a limited amount of time.
