Yes, I missed last year.
It’s been TWO years since I did this. Unfortunately, I had to skip last year, due to my crazy busy work schedule. I just couldn’t manage to get one of these posted. So, we’ve skipped a year, but I am now back on track with more.
So, we’ll do an assessment of what I predicted for 2023 (and I’ll let it spill into 2024), before we jump into 2025 mobile industry predictions.
But before I do, I must say – the year 2024 has certainly been epic. We are definitely at a crossroads for mobile messaging, with many revelations and new directions that came to fruition in 2024. All of this means that, in 2025, messaging will most certainly evolve more and probably in some unexpected ways.
If you want to skip the assessment of the last two years, jump to the 2025 Predictions.
Assessing Previous Predictions
Let’s now refer back to my 2023 Predictions and let’s do a quick assessment of how those fared and we’ll also discuss how 2024 changed some of them.
1. Mobile Devices – I expected another round of Apple iPhones, including the iPhone 15 (which will support satellite capabilities) including an Apple device for Virtual Reality (VR). I also predicted that there would be no major overhauls for the Android operating system.
| 2023 Reality: As predicted, the iPhone 15 was announced on September 12, 2023, and it became available on the 18th of September. As with each new iteration of iPhone, this one did not disappoint with a plethora of new features and capabilities. This was also the debut of iOS 17. Of course, we didn’t get any support for RCS at that time. In fact, no one expected that RCS would ever work natively on any Apple device at that time. iPhone 15 did support satellite capability to enable roadside assistance, text emergency services, and share locations when away from cellular and/or Wi-Fi. The Apple Vision Pro Virtual Reality headset was announced at the 2023 Worldwide Developer’s Conference on June 5, 2023. The product became available on February 2, 2024. Actually, this product turned out to be more mix-reality goggles, verses full VR or AR. Google did launch almost a dozen new features in their November 2023 release of Android 14, including several messaging enhancements. Notably, this upgrade came after Apple’s groundbreaking RCS announcement as well as Google noting that there were over 1 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs). While not a groundbreaking upgrade, it was a needed upgrade nonetheless. All predictions were spot on, so 100% for this one. |
| 2024 Update: As with Apple, each year brings a new iteration of the iPhone. 2024 was no exception, seeing the launch of iPhone 16, with its improved processor and capabilities to support Apple’s AI features. Of course, as mentioned above, the Apple Vision Pro was actually available on February 2, 2024; however, by the end of the year, rumors began that Apple had suspended production on the Vision Pro, as they had begun plans for a lower cost headset. Vision Pro 2 was also rumored to be delayed until 2026. But this is a product that should continue to pay dividends for Apple. Android 15 became available in Q4 2024 and generated much more excitement than Android 14. |
2. Mobile Messaging – Carrier solutions – P2P SMS and MMS would continue to be the predominant channel for interaction, with P2P SMS declining slightly by around 5% overall, leveraging the United States as the heaviest user of that service. But A2P messaging was predicted to grow, and RCS would slow its growth rate, but still surpass 1.5 billion daily users – mainly for business messaging (or RBM). Finally, I predicted that iOS will not support RCS in any form.
| 2023 Reality: Let’s start with the last one first. Technically RCS was not supported by iOS in 2023; however, Apple did its groundbreaking announcement that it would support RCS in 2024. So technically, this was correct. In terms of SMS/MMS usage, the CTIA reported in their 2024 Wireless Industry Survey that 2023 SMS/MMS traffic was at 2.1 trillion messages – the same as 2022. Looking at a different set of data from Mobilesquared, SMS users increased from 5.569 billion users in December 2022 to 5.699 billion users in December 2023, a 2.28% rise. Certainly, SMS/MMS remained the predominant P2P channel, however, unlike the prediction, this remained stable. While Mobilesquared mainly focuses on A2P data, and in fact, all A2P channels, including SMS/MMS continued to grow from 2022 to 2023. RCS Business Messaging (RBM) grew 26% during that time period, reaching 1.225 billion monthly active users, so less than the 1.5 billion predicted, which was ultimately reached in the autumn of 2024. These predictions were close, but not still off. SMS/MMS did not decline, and was, in fact flat through 2023 and RCS Business Messaging did not hit 1.5 billion MAUs until 2024; consequently, let’s call these predictions 60% correct. |
| 2024 Update: More of the same. Per Mobilesquared, Business Messaging channels continue to rise through the year. RBM is shown at a 36.3% 12-month growth as of this writing in early 2025. While final numbers are not in yet, since Apple did roll out support for P2P RCS in iOS 18 in the fall of 2024, we might now finally start to see the beginning of the long decline of P2P SMS/MMS as more traffic shifts to RCS when going between iOS and Android. Since the CTIA reported 2.1 trillion for 2022 and 2023, maybe we’ll see 1.9 trillion to 2.0 trillion for 2024. The key point is that both P2P mobile operators messaging and A2P messaging is entering the cross-roads, as RCS begins to influence the messaging direction. 2025 will begin to tell the tale. |
3. Messaging Apps were predicted to have another big year in 2023 with WhatsApp reaching 2.95 billion users, but not quite 3 billion (or 65% of smartphones), while Facebook Messenger reaches 1.75 billion, Apple Business Chat reaching 1.1 billion users and finally Telegram will reach over 1 billion users.
| 2023 Reality: Actually, the last few years have been kind to the various messaging apps around the world. While not all regions have embraced non-mobile-operator messaging apps to the same extent, they continue to do well and, in many cases, are becoming well-used channels for consumer engagement too. WhatsApp achieved 2.66 billion users, per Mobilesquared, so not quite reaching the 2.95 billion that was forecast. Facebook Messenger’s growth slowed, and only reached 1.084 billion by the end of the year, while Apple Business Chat did reach over 1.203 billion to exceed the 1.1 billion forecast. Telegram, which has been associated with a variety of hotspots in the world, only achieved 718 million users, and in fact, its growth was quite flat. Some of the Messaging Apps growth rate was slowed, while Apple Business Chat exceeded the forecast. Let’s assign 70% correct to these predictions. |
| 2024 Update: Over the last year, all of the non-mobile-operator messaging apps continued their slow trajectories. It was reported thatas of July 25, 2024, that WhatsApp achieved 100 million monthly active users. This was significant, in that the United States, despite its large number of highly-engaged mobile subscribers, historically, did not have a good WhatsApp penetration rate. With over 386 million subscribers as of the end of 2023, that’s still less than 1/3 of the US subscribers using WhatsApp. Also in 2024, Telegram began growing slightly more than 2023, and as of June 2024, reached 743 million monthly active users, while Facebook Messenger reached 1.13 billion monthly active users. The biggest growth rate still was Apple Business Messaging, reaching 1.247 billion monthly active users by the end of June 2024.= |
4. US A2P Messaging – Back in 2022, when I published my last predictions, the ability to leverage 10-digit long codes (really regular telephone numbers – we say 10DLC) as a sender ID for business texting was at long last sanctioned by the US mobile operators and just getting started. I predicted a 100+% growth in 10DLC activations in 2023. I also noted that we would see at least another 7% growth in short code activations as well.
| 2023 Reality: Certainly, 2023 was a banner year for 10DLC campaigns as the CPaaS providers and CSPs really ramped up their 10DLC campaigns. While US mobile carriers and CPaaS providers worked to harmonize some of the campaign standards, more businesses began embracing the relative ease of 10DLC. Consequently, the number of campaigns increased substantially, during the year. While concrete data is not always available, observations indicate that the number of campaigns more than doubled in 2023. Additionally, active short codes continued to grow at least 10%, based on observed data. A2P SMS and MMS continued to benefit subscribers. From a SimpleTexting Key Business Insights infographic, we see that in 2023, 86% of business owners and marketing managed used SMS marketing to text their customers, indicating a 56% increase in SMS marketing adoption in 2023, leading to the continued surge in 10DLC engagements. These statistics along with the observed data indicate that the predictions for this topic are around 90% correct. |
| 2024 Update: By the end of 2024, it has generally been accepted that there are now over 2 million 10DLC campaigns as well as at least 2.2 million registered brands for 10DLC. Many of these are small and medium businesses, including Sole Proprietors, who have, until 10DLC, been essentially locked out of the ability to use text messaging for their businesses; however, the 10DLC program has made this channel accessible for them. |
5. 5G networks – For 2023, I predicted over 275, possibly 300 5G networks deployed in 2023 with 850 commercial LTE networks and 400 LTE-Advanced networks commercially deployed. Finally, in looking at IoT-specific networks, I expected 140 NB-IoT and 65 LTE-M commercial networks. And to get really crazy, I noted that 10 mobile network operators were beginning to invest in 6G network technologies.
| 2023 Reality: As of December 2023, there were – 302 operators that launched public 5G networks (predicted 300 – 100%) – 824 operators that launched public LTE networks (predicted 850 – 90%) – 357 operators that launched LTE-advanced networks (predicted 400 – 85%) – 132 who had launched NB-IoT, and 61 who had launched LTE-M services. (predicted 140 and 65, so call it 85%) This leaves us an average of 90% correct for 5G and other network predictions. This shows that MNOs continue to invest to improve their networks at a significant pace. |
| [2024 Update] – Looking at last year, as of December 2024, all categories continued to show a good growth pace with 343 commercially launched 5G networks, 833 MNOs with LTE networks, 400 for LTE-Advanced (interestingly my 2023 prediction) and for IoT we had 133 NB-IoT and 61 LTE-M. Noteworthy is that there were no additional LTE-M networks deployed in 2024, from the end of 2023. |
6. FCC Leadership – For 2023, I had predicted that Gigi Sohn would finally be confirmed after her nomination was stalled due to political fighting. I also noted that new FCC proposed rulemaking that was issued in 2022 to combat robotaxis would not ultimately result in new rules in 2023, given the large outpouring of industry voices against the proposed rulemaking.
| 2023 Reality: Despite her best efforts, Gigi Sohn withdrew her nomination in March 2023. President Biden then nominated telecom lawyer Anna Gomez, who was confirmed by the Senate on September 7, 2023 with her term ending on July 1, 2026. The FCC did, in fact, issue some robo-texting rules in 2023; however, they were not anywhere close to what was proposed in the original proposed rulemaking. Consequently, what was in the regulations was definitely in line with industry expectations and did not contradict or supersede the work the industry was already Prediction-wise, this was a complete miss on the nomination; however, let’s call it 20% correct since the FCC rules were much less than what was proposed. |
| 2024 Update: Jessica Rosenworcel continued as Chair of the FCC throughout 2024 and will likely step down as Chair, once Brendan Carr takes over to be the next FCC Chair. Carr was named in November 2024. We also saw some less controversial rules approved that will go into effect in January 2025 – mainly around one-to-one consent, specifically to close the “Lead Generator loophole.” Even though these are generally accepted within the industry stakeholders, we should still expect some push-back under the guise that this harms small businesses. I wholeheartedly disagree, but we’ll get into that in a future blog post. One-to-one consent is extremely important when it comes to business texting – regardless of channel used. |
7. Political messaging – After the 2022 midterm elections, political texting was predicted to have less messaging; however, since the majority of political text messages are based on the 10DLC ecosystem, we can gauge interest by reviewing registrations from Campaign Verify. For 2023, the prediction was for as many as 4000 new registrations in 2023, in advance of the 2024 General Election in the United States. It was also noted there would be loosed requirements for political texts along with carrier policies to accommodate them.
| 2023 Reality. As of June 2023, we note that there were over 9400 total political registrations with 22% federal, 42% state, and 36% local. Certainly, candidates across the ballot began leveraging political text messaging. With that many political campaigns registering, all through 10DLC, then the carriers did in fact, upgrade some of their capabilities as well as to issue guidance through the 10DLC Direct Connect Aggregators (or DCAs) to make sure that the messaging infrastructure would not be overwhelmed with loads of political texts. The reality was significantly more than the 4000 new Campaign Verify registrations predicted; however, I had under-predicted, so I’ll put this at 75% correct for the prediction. |
| 2024 Update: The 2024 election has come and gone. According to information released by AT&T in an FCC filing, AT&T estimated 7% of their overall 10DLC traffic is political text messaging. So, let’s make some estimates. Generally, A2P traffic comprises anywhere from 5-10% of a carrier’s overall traffic, but a lot of that is short code traffic. I estimate that 4% of the carriers’ total traffic is 10DLC. So, if we apply that to the CTIA reported 2.1 trillion messages sent in 2023 (likely similar in 2024), then we have roughly 105 billion 10DLC messages. So, if 6% of those 10DLC messages are pollical that gives us 16.8 billion to 18 billion political messages (to set a general range) across all carriers for 2024. Which is in line with the 15 billion reported during the 2022 midterm elections and the expected increase for this most recent election cycle. As of this writing, there have not been any other parties that have reported political text messaging number for the 2024 election. Unfortunately, AT&T also noted that political texting was the #1 consumer complaint for their customers. Just in April 2024, they noted the #1, #2, #4, and # 7 consumer complaints originated from just one Presidential candidate. In fact, they stated “political texting is the overwhelming source of consumer SMS / MMS angst.” Another striking statistic is that 74 of the top 100 telephone numbers reported to AT&T’s own customers belonged to political messaging senders. This data shows that while political texting was very successful in the 2024 election, it was fraught with non-compliance, in that most, if not all of it, was sent without obtaining proper consent from consumers. |
8. Mobile channels continue to be one of the most effective means for businesses to communicate with consumers. The 2023 predictions noted that both WhatsApp and SMS will lead the pack, but with more conversational style outreach. UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) was also expected to excel in 2023 with many becoming mainstream in large and small businesses everywhere. Of course, traditional A2P will continue to lead in all channels, but 2-way, message based conversational interactions will grow – especially in rich messaging across all channels.
| 2023 Reality: Realistically, this was an easy prediction. Of course, mobile channels continued to be the most effect means of business communications. You may believe me, but let’s look at the data. A recent Vibes Study indicated that 86% of the mobile consumers are more likely to engage with a business or even redeem offers sent via SMS than via email. Furthermore, “4 in 5 consumers want to receive a text message from brands they love or at least once a week.” No matter the year, the results continue to speak the same. Consumers prefer to engage with businesses – whether notifications, conversations, marketing, or even security, through mobile messaging channels. Want more? SimpleTexting noted in their State of Texting + SMS Marketing in 2023 that 86% of business owners used SMS marketing in the last year, up from 55% the year before (2022). And I’ll go out on a bit of limb here and state that while these studies are US-based with SMS, the same basic statistics apply to OTT messaging such as WhatsApp in markets where it is prevalent. Mobilesquared’s WhatsApp Business Messaging Report from April 2024 noted that “In 2023 enterprise and brand adoption of WhatsApp Business started growing and this will only accelerate from 2024 onwards.” I did note that conversational engagement will grow, but per the Mobilesquared report, it will actually start declining in favor of other A2P messaging options such as marketing, utility, and authentication. Finally, UCaaS (Universal Communications as a Service) continued to grow in 2023 with a market size of 21.10 billion from 18.36 billion in 2022, per information from Fortune Business Insights, with the North American market holding the major share of the global market. Texting (or Business Messaging) from UCaaS users has become a large driver of 10DLC traffic in 2023 and is expected to continuing for markets that allow texting from non-wireless / non-mobile operator numbers. There was only one real miss on the growth of conversational business texting as it declined; but otherwise, an accurate prediction: 90% Correct. |
| 2024 Update: Trends outlined in 2023 continue to grow. The Fortune Business Insights indicates that “adoption of distributed workforce and remote work approaches accelerate demand.” And that is very true. For the messaging industry – especially in the United States and Canada – most major UCaaS providers also provide texting capabilities that can be leveraged within the same “chat” interfaces that employees use. For those platforms that do not have their own built-in SMS/MMS capabilities, there are third-party solution “apps” that can be added to UCaaS platforms such as Microsoft Teams, among others. Again, in 2024, UCaaS represented a significant portion of 10DLC with some brands or enterprises using huge number pools for their accounts since each employee has their own business phone number. Of course for 2024, mobile channels, both operator messaging and OTT, once again continued to lead and to be the best, most effective channels to engage and interact with consumers. Trends outlined for 2023 continued in 2024 and will continue, albeit evolve in 2025, now that RCS Business Messaging is supported by IOS. |
9. Mobile payments were revisited for a set of simple predictions for 2023. Google Pay was predicted to grow to 60-65 countries for availability with Apple Pay available in 80 countries by the end of 2023. In 2022, PayPal was available in more than 200 countries, with no changes predicted for 2023. Whether contactless or not – mobile payments are certainly mainstream, and the trends indicate that leveraging mobile payments will continue.
| 2023 Reality: According to several queries (including Microsoft CoPilot), Apple Pay was available in over 80 countries at the end of 2023. Google Pay (now Google Wallet – more on that later) was supported in around 60 countries at the end of 2023. As noted in the original prediction, PayPal remained available in more than 200 countries, with little change. For Mobile payments, 100% correct. |
| 2024 Update: In June of 2024, Google Pay was sunset and replaced with Google Wallet. Google Wallet penetration reached 86 countries in July 2024 and remained at that number at the end of the year. Apple Pay reached over 90 countries by the end of 2024. And of course, PayPal is still available in over 200 countries. Contactless payment acceptances continue to grow, as does leveraging in-app payments (which in may cases, can reloaded via Apple Pay or Google Wallet). |
10. Finally, a few general, non-specific predictions for Generative AI for mobile messaging and the mobile industry were outlined for 2023. Specifically, I specifically noted that “ChatGPT (and Google’s Bard) may actually help enhance engagement through mobile devices.” I also indicated that I thought the AI hype would die down by the 2nd half of 2023 but also look for some interesting integrations and useful applications.
| 2023 Reality: Certainly hype about Generative AI did not die down, but only increased and that continued into 2024 and will simply expand its reach. But in 2023, some of the larger CPaaS companies were using generative AI to enhance natural language processing for messaging chatbots. In September 2023, UCaaS innovator Dialpad announced DialpadGPT, which of course, is a large-language model catering specifically to the business user. As Dialpad also offers an extensive communications suite, including messaging, this product will both leverage their messaging channels as well as enhance them and their solutions. Since I was wrong in 2022 about over-hyping Generative AI, but right about everything else, I’ll call this 75% correct. |
| 2024 Update: AI continues to dominate technology headlines across the spectrum. Multiple CPaaS providers and CSPs now leverage AI-enhanced chatbots that are part of the business messaging chats. As RCS becomes more mainstream, expect to see even more AI support with RCS interactions, enabling users to easily engage with brands and businesses. |
Summing it all up, my 2022 predictions for 2023 were: 77% Correct. For my 2022 predictions, I was 78.5% correct and 81% correct for 2021.
While the last two years were not particularly transformative, we did see a few exciting breakthroughs. Certainly, the long-awaited Apple announcement that they would support the RCS messaging standards was a catalyst that is now re-making both personal P2P (or person-to-person messaging), but more so, business messaging (or A2P as we like to call it).
So, what’s in store for 2025?
Here are my mobile industry predictions for 2025 (of course, heavily weighted to messaging, B2C engagement, mobile security, and other topics I might know a bit about). When possible, I’ll try to make these predictions verifiable, so that next year, we can learn what came to fruition and what did not.
1. P2P SMS and MMS messaging will decline by at least 80% from 2024 levels by the end of 2025. While we don’t exactly know how many SMS/MMS messages were sent in 2024, we know that the United States (the world’s largest market by far, for SMS and MMS) sent over 2.1 trillion messages in 2023 per CTIA statistics.
This decline is a direct result of P2P RCS being supported by iOS 18.x, which began rolling out in Q4 2024. But there will still be some residual P2P SMS traffic due to some devices not supporting RCS (Android and/or iOS) as well as messaging apps either not allowed or not yet upgraded to support P2P RCS. The latter needs to happen as there are many 2nd-line or alternative messaging apps as well as UCaaS messaging apps that are perfectly capable of supporting P2P RCS – and that will be good for the entire ecosystem.
While we are at it, as we don’t have final numbers for 2024, a sub-prediction is that 2024 SMS/MMS traffic will have fallen around 15-20% from 2023 levels – just based on Q4 migrations to RCS.
2 In 2025, the number of carriers worldwide will be supporting RCS Business Messaging will surge. Consequently, expect a bigger surge in RCS Business Messaging users to over 1.75 billion monthly active users from current levels at around 1.5 billion MAUs. Additionally, RBM will challenge WhatsApp in some markets where WhatsApp was the dominant business messaging channel. This is due to RBM offering more flexibility than WhatsApp. As RBM will be the most hyped and promoted messaging channel, expect lots of push from the CPaaS providers; however, anecdotal results, surveys, and interviews will reveal much greater consumer confidence and engagement than ever before.
3. Mobile Network technology is important more than ever, now that the richness of RCS as well as other rich OTT messaging communities can be fully realized. So each year, we track the number of mobile operators that are supporting the latest and best mobile networking technologies. By the end of 2025, we should now see at least right around 375 to 395 5G networks. But LTE and LTE-Advanced network rollouts are still happening, so expect 850 commercial LTE networks and 425 LTE-Advanced networks. IoT will remain important with investment in these networks as well, so I predict 150 NB-IoT and 65 LTE-M networks.
Finally, not to rest, but 6th Generation research has already begun. We should not yet expect any commercial 6G deployments, but certainly some MNO investment and technical progress.
4. Devices. We all loved the new iPhone 16. Expect an iPhone 17 in 2025, but only as an incremental update to the 16. In terms of functionality, more built-in support for AI. iOS 19 will also provide additional enhancements for messaging. While we did get RCS / RBM in iOS 18, expect additional enhancements that will improve the messaging experience, potentially for those non-Apple messaging apps as well. Android 16 is planned for 2025 and should be fully operational before the end of year, with Android 17 starting in Beta before the end of the year. Messaging support within Android should have no major updates this year.
5. FCC Regulations: As of this writing, the FCC had approved one-to-one consent policies / regulations that were to go in effect on January 27th; however, these have been delayed and likely rescinded. Consequently, this FCC will likely do very little additional regulation around the messaging industry for the remainder of 2025, no matter how reasonable they sound. But rest assured, carriers will still require one-to-one consent, no matter what the FCC does. Additionally, look for additional anti-robotexting regulations to be proposed and potentially voted on in 2025.
6. Mobile Messaging Security / Fraud / Solutions. More and more, industry attention is being directed to messaging security. Certainly, the registration of 10-digit long codes (10DLCs) as well as toll-free numbers has done a very good job of managing sanctioned business messaging. The same is true with RCS Business Messaging as it begins to build and grow rapidly, as iOS and mobile operators converge to support it. But RCS is encrypted, so P2P RCS cannot be filtered by 3rd parties – it must be filtered near or at the recipient. This will raise questions and potentially become a vector for bad actors to gain access into the RCS ecosystem. Look for some new solutions that will successfully provide appropriate filtering of fraudulent P2P RCS messages. Also, today RBM registration and Right-to-Use is rather distributed among carriers and Google. Look for several, country-specific or region-specific solutions to be launched in 2025 that will consolidate RBM registrations – much like what The Campaign Registry does for 10DLC.
7. United States 10DLC in a growing RCS playground – In the United States, 10DLC has become a powerhouse SMS subchannel – enabling more businesses than ever to partake in the benefits of SMS and MMS messaging. By the end of 2024, over 2 million brands and campaigns had been registered. Now RCS Business Messaging is starting to make some inroads, now that iOS supports it. However, 10DLC will continue to be an important channel in 2025. Expect that by the end of the year, the number of 10DLC campaigns will be roughly the same as the end of 2024 – approximately 2 million brands and campaigns – meaning that while some 10DLC will convert to RBM, more net-new brands and campaigns will be launched on SMS/MMS – mostly smaller businesses.
8. Communications – UCaaS evolution – In the 2022 predictions for 2023 and the 2024 update, we noted that Universal Communications as a Service solutions typically also include text messaging as part of their “chat” capabilities. It was also noted that UCaaS providers represented a substantial part of 10DLC traffic – most of it personal conversational between various employees of businesses that leverage UCaaS and other mobile consumers. For 2025, this trend will continue, with UCaaS continuing its growth trajectory as remote work is now very much ingrained for many companies. Furthermore, some of the SMS-based chat capabilities will start migrating to RCS, but the majority of it will still remain SMS.
9. RCS nuances – While RCS for Apple iOS is fully supported for Person-to-Person – typically between Android Messages and Apple Messages, there are other messaging apps (free / 2nd-line apps, UCaaS services) that leverage SMS and MMS. Several of these are working to also support GSMA’s Universal Profile and RCS but have been essentially “locked-out” of the ecosystem. This will change in 2025, and we will see other messaging apps that have implemented UP RCS able to interoperate with iOS and Android devices’ native messaging apps. Some of this will be based on the new iOS feature that enables users to specify a specific default messaging apps on their device.
10. Non-MNO Messaging Apps (AKA OTT Messaging Apps) will stagnate their growth in 2025. RCS will be taking the spotlight – even in markets where WhatsApp has virtually drowned out P2P SMS messaging. This will lead to a decline in growth in some of these apps by the end of 2025. In fact, the number of monthly average users will decline for some messaging apps, that are not WhatsApp. WhatsApp will not exceed 2.85 billion MAUs in 2025.
And there you have it. Ten predictions for the mobile messaging industry as well as the general mobile industry for 2025, which, for many, will play pivotal roles as to how this groundbreaking transformation will play out. I do expect lots of drama and some headaches, but I am confident that stakeholders will provide some amazing new features across the ecosystem that will benefit and protect consumers.
What do you think?