Those of you that know me, know that for the last 25 years, plus, I’ve been a huge advocate of SMS as well as MMS as primary mobile communications channels.  And I’ve never, ever predicted or even contemplated that it will eventually end. Well, my friends, that day is fast approaching.  I bet you never thought you’d see me commit to that.

If you recall we talked about the original announcement on November 16, 2023, that Apple would support RCS in 2024.  The 2024 Apple WWDC is right around the corner, and I believe that we’ll hear a bit more about this announcement for the next version of iOS. 

So why do I believe that this marks the “beginning” of the end of SMS/MMS.  I say this because, these days, a very significant part of the world is either Android or iOS.  Certainly, in the United States, still volume-wise – the largest SMS/MMS market in the world, is about 55% iOS and 45% Android.  99% of the world is now Android (71%) or iOS (28%) and the majority of the SMS (and MMS) messages that are Person-to-Person (P2P) flow between these two mobile operating systems – either within a single Mobile Network Operator (MNO) or between two MNOs.