It’s finally happening. Apple has released iOS 18 with support for RCS at long last. Of course, for many markets, this does not yet include RCS Business Messaging (RBM), but I believe this is coming soon. We’ve seen Beta versions of iOS 18 where RBM is supported. I currently have iOS 18.1 (Public Beta) and it isn’t here yet for my carrier in the United States. I never downloaded developer versions, so I’ve never seen RBM on my iPhone yet.
That said, within a few weeks or a month or two, RBM should start to be ubiquitous in the United States. As I noted, P2P to Android RCS is now live. The table’s been set, so let’s get to the main course.
As more people update to iOS 18, we will begin to see less and less SMS and MMS, and more RCS for Person-to-Person (P2P) texting. In 2023, per the 2024 CTIA Annual Survey, Americans exchanged over 2.1 trillion SMS and MMS messages (incidentally, the same as in 2022). This number will drop in 2024 as in Q4, consumers begin to download iOS 18. And their texting to Android will become RCS.
As the Android ad shows, Apple finally got the message.
I made my first Apple iOS 18. RCS message in mid-August using one of the public beta versions. As of this date, that’s been the only time I’ve had an actual text exchange using RCS, as most people that I text with have iPhones.
By the end of 2025, I predict that 2.1 trillion will have reduced by close to 85-90 percent. P2P SMS and MMS will be in the low billions as all P2P messaging is either iMessage or RCS. The only P2P SMS that will be left will be from smaller carriers not yet supporting RCS as well as some 2nd-line Apps and other residual fallback SMS from Apple devices unable to support iOS18. Overall, including A2P SMS, we might be in the neighborhood of 500 billion as I stated in my May 30 2024 post: Are We About to See the Beginning of the End of SMS & MMS?
But herein lies a problem. A drop in a messaging channel volume of that much could result in some of the Inter-carrier P2P SMS hub providers to completely discontinue their services. This will have the effect of rendering some messaging providers and consumers still leveraging P2P SMS and MMS without the connectivity they enjoyed reaching all mobile operators. The current inter-carrier SMS/MMS P2P hub providers in this marketplace should remain until the last P2P SMS messaging provider migrates to RCS. But business is business and that will likely not happen.
This certainly will put pressure on anyone leveraging P2P SMS/MMS services to migrate to full RCS support for P2P in 2025. Some consumer-focused P2P players could cease business altogether, as they will be unable to comply with some of the demands that Google has made in order to interoperate through the Google-Jibe cloud. It’s a bit of a Catch-22.
Meanwhile, on July 25, 2024, Meta announced that in the United States, WhatsApp now has 100 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs). But the article notes, that once the Apple-Android RCS support really gets going, that number is not likely to grow much more. I think it might decline slightly or stabilize.
RBM enters the Room
As RBM becomes more ubiquitous when iOS18 finally supports it, then consumers’ receipts of business messaging will be much more engaging, rich and interactive. And more than that – it will be much more secure, as only pre-approved brands and enterprises will be able to send true RBM with the requisite checkmark, giving consumers confidence. We’ve all heard the pitches from the CPaaS providers, the CSPs, Google, and just about everyone in the mobile messaging space.
However, let’s take a step back for a moment and talk about SPAM in RCS.
When one receives a SPAM RCS message, it will almost always originate from a regular phone number, instead of a named business as the Sender Id. So, we could say that the only SPAM messages might be business-looking messages from a phone number, instead of a brand name in the sender ID. OK, fair enough. That’s been the message in several discussions I’ve seen on LinkedIn.
But…
Today, there are something like 1.8 to 2 million 10DLC messaging campaigns from over 2.0 million registered brands in the United States and this is still increasing.
And those registered brands, with registered and approved 10DLC messaging campaigns are still sending…what is it? SMS and MMS messages with 10-digit phone numbers as sender IDs. Perfectly legitimate, registered, and approved. And they will still be sending these messages in 2025 and beyond.
So, we cannot accurately say that a business message from a phone number is automatically going to be SPAM (or phishing or unwanted, etc.) just because it has a phone number as a sender ID. Otherwise, businesses that pay good money to have their messages delivered will all of the sudden be accused of sending SPAM messages. And probably most of them are currently enjoying the benefits of using the messaging channel to reach their customers.
Many of these messages are from very small businesses or even sole proprietors that will not automatically or quickly (if ever) migrate to RBM. A2P SMS/MMS will be around for a long time and will certainly be a significant part of the at least 500 billion SMS and MMS messages that will be delivered in the United States in 2025.
The A2P migration may end up taking significantly longer than the P2P migration – in fact, through the end of this decade at least.
The same could be said for toll-free texting and short code texting; although these might actually migrate to RCS quicker, as these tend to be larger business entities using these sender IDs.
The key point is that migrations from SMS/MMS to RBM are going to take a long time – if ever – for some levels of businesses. 10DLC has done a great job of bringing mobile messaging to the millions of small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises, enabling them to benefit from all that this channel can offer.
So, to say that the end of SMS and MMS is upon us – let’s not rush and forget this channel just yet. True – for P2P, that ship is sailing fast – but let’s keep our infrastructure and support in place until the very last sender of P2P SMS and MMS is finished and has migrated; otherwise, we could potentially inflict a loss of communications for some vulnerable and less economically secure demographics.
I, for one, am excited that Apple supported RCS (and soon RBM) is upon us. We’re just in the beginning days, but as more and more P2P transitions to RCS, those volumes will continue to drop sharply. When RBM becomes more ubiquitous across iOS, more businesses will take the steps to migrate their messaging outreach, notifications, and alerts to RBM. But we must remain vigilant and cautious and help consumers understand what is and isn’t fraudulent traffic. There is still much outreach and education to do. All stakeholders must share in this activity and not end services prematurely as we will still have A2P SMS/MMS and even a little P2P SMS/MMS will still be with us for some time – especially A2P SMS and MMS, given the still-increasing 10DLC traffic for the USA.