SMS market overview

Enterprises globally are increasingly looking towards mobile as a key channel in their communications mix. From airlines adopting mobile check-in functions, banks using one-time passwords via SMS to authenticate transactions, to internet companies incorporating SMS functionality in their service offerings, enterprise mobility via SMS is a major growth area.

One development driving mobile uptake in enterprises is the adoption of new technologies.  The rise of advanced smartphones, mobile web and ‘app’ technology all offer a range of new interaction opportunities between companies and their stakeholders.  Indeed, these new services are seen by some as a threat to established mobile technologies such as SMS. 

However, the evidence to date does not support this view.  Messaging still makes up more than 60% of overall data revenues globally and research from Comscore in 2010 indicates that, whilst 25% of European mobile users have accessed the internet from their mobile phone, more than 80% use messaging and only 12.6% have used mobile instant messenger.

Moreover, compared to SMS, apps are still very much a nascent market – according to Portio Research, at £127 billion in 2011, SMS contributes 13 times as much revenue as apps.  Growth in the market is also still very apparent - according to Informa 6.1 trillion SMS were sent in 2010 with this expected to exceed 10 trillion by 2013. The application-to-person share of SMS traffic is estimated by Juniper Research to grow from 13% in 2010 to 22% in 2016.

The reasons for the success of SMS are clear.  First and foremost,  the technology is  ubiquitous.  SMS works on every mobile device and almost all mobile users understand how to use it.  Moreover, the GSM coverage that powers SMS is globally ubiquitous, unlike the 3G coverage that underpins mobile apps and web technology.

SMS is what is known as a universal mobile technology.  Unlike other formats there are no issues with interoperability or differing technology standards and it doesn’t require any sort of specialist device.  Additionally, whilst mobile web and app services offer a range of additional functionality, the limited distribution of smartphones and the 3G coverage that they require means that they simply cannot claim the reach and ubiquity of SMS.

The key for enterprises to be successful in their mobile communication channels is therefore to achieve an optimal communication mix.   A mobile web or app service can be effective in serving the comparatively  small smartphone user base, but the same service can also be enabled for a much broader user base through an SMS interaction alternative.

The range of applications for SMS in the enterprise market is near endless.  The apparent simplicity of an SMS message can concealits level of flexibility. The technology can be applied to hundreds of different use cases, from mobile check-ins to banking SMS authentication and mobile social networking.

A factor that has held back the broader adoption of SMS as an enterprise tool has been negative perceptions about its quality.  Traditional consumer SMS has developed as a person-to-person communications tool with a ‘best effort’ approach to delivery, meaning that messages can be delayed or lost.

Reliability is vital in enterprise situations.  For deployment in any mission critical application a technology needs to be trusted, reliable and robust. Moreover, reliability is vital in the provisioning of consumer-facing services.  As the initial consumer disappointment over MMS shows, any perception of unreliability in a service can cause significant reputational damage and limit a broader uptake.

We are a multifaceted mobile interaction service provider and are one of the leading providers of enterprise SMS globally. We lead the market in the provisioning of high-quality services delivered through multiple points of connection into the deep-level mobile network globally.  With a 15-second delivery guarantee backed up by rigorous SLAs, our services are used by some of the world’s largest enterprises and internet companies.

We also lead the market in the simplicity we bring to integrating SMS into enterprise environments. We offer clients a single, standardized interface with global reach and our proprietary technology platform offers the flexibility to allow enterprises to quickly and easily deploy new services.