More and more businesses in all industry verticals have started employing SMS messaging for their customer relationship management. From two-factor authentication (2FA), high-volume alerts, notifications, appointment reminders, to all sorts of SMS marketing campaigns, SMS has become the most popular way to reach out to customers and gain their attention. This messaging is also known as application-to-person, or A2P messaging. Others call it enterprise or business messaging. No matter how you name it, what is important here is that SMS is now the most desired communication channel among brands. Industries such as banking, financial institutions, e-commerce, healthcare, and entertainment are widely using A2P SMS.

As technology continues to advance and with OTT players constantly on the rise, certain services and software inevitably become obsolete. How should telco businesses and service providers evolve to stay relevant and cope with the ever-changing trends? What are the market gaps that will surface when 5G and giant cloud techs finally hit the trade? The editorial team at Telecoms World Asia had the opportunity to interview Fabrizio Salanitri, the CEO of HORISEN. He will be sharing about the evolution of the telco industry, the challenges that communication service providers face today, and what to look forward to at Telecoms World Asia 2020.

On June 17 this year Google announced it is officially rolling out its RCS Chat in the UK and France. In the UK, the service officially became available on 28 June for some users. After this news broke, RCS became the main buzz word. However, RCS or Rich Communication Services is not a novelty. RCS protocol dates back to 2007. In 2008 GCM Association took it over, while in 2016 it became an agreed standard when GCMA published the Universal Profile on RCS. The Universal Profile is a set of features and technical enablers built to facilitate global operator deployment of RCS. RCS is a new messaging standard aimed to enable the industry to deliver a consistent and more advanced texting experience for billions of consumers worldwide. The goal is to have most smartphones with a built-in advanced messaging that features read receipts, the capability to send high-resolution images and videos, typing indicators, animated stickers, better group texting, etc. Similar to popular chat apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, and others. In other words, RCS is the protocol intended to supersede the SMS. This protocol should provide improved messaging. To put it simply, RCS is enriched SMS.

Operators’ core revenues have been shrinking since 2012. Voice margins are decreasing, and SMS messaging has also suffered an impact from OTT messaging apps. SMS market has survived the initial shock caused by IM applications. Moreover, SMS traffic is now growing because the use of SMS has become very popular among enterprises. A2P messaging market is booming and is estimated to be worth $70.32 billion by 2020.

A2P SMS Messaging (application to person messaging), or enterprise 2-way SMS, is an ideal way to maintain consistent and timely communication with your customers. In a world where everything is so fast, it is essential to have quality communication with your audience and clients because people don’t want to wait. For anything, anymore. Customers expect fast if possible immediate responses from companies and brands.

The first question that usually comes up when you try to make a connection between SMS marketing and B2B business model is the following: Is SMS marketing suitable for B2B companies? Unlike B2C (business-to-consumer) companies focused on selling products directly to consumers, B2B is a business model in which companies are doing business with each other. B2B companies are selling products or services to other companies.

The world of SMS is full of acronyms that might confuse you, especially if more than one term is used for the same thing. So, we decided to help you learn this specific language. Being familiar with SMS industry jargon is half the battle. We’re starting with MO vs MT messages. Industry experts and professionals often use these two terms. What do these acronyms mean? Let’s start with the MO message.

Although we witness a serious rise in popularity of Over-The-Top (OTT) instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, more than 50% of WhatsApp users still think that SMS will always be an essential form of communication for them. And more importantly, OTT messaging services don’t allow users to send messages in bulk which puts SMS on the top of the list of the most useful marketing tools.

SMS marketing is a perfect business choice if you want to communicate with your customers/audience in a fast, efficient and inexpensive way. There are more than 6 billion mobile devices in the world today. SMS reached more than 3 billion people using these 6 billion devices. This means that SMS is ruling the mobile market and is the most used tool on smartphones, despite mobile development with an abundance of mobile apps and easiness to access and browse the net on a mobile phone.

Bulk SMS is a very useful and effective marketing channel that should be an integral part of any mobile marketing strategy that tends to achieve real success in today’s mobile world. As we all know, mobile phones are ruling our digital world, so mobile-focused marketing has become a focal point of every strategic marketing planning. Mobile marketing is a huge must for every business that wants to keep a competitive edge over their competitors and maintain advantage within the industry.