In 2012 Dave Boddington won a Bronze Cannes Lion for the Best Integrated CampaignLed by Mobile for the London Olympics activation with the Coca-Cola Global team. He serves as the Group Product Manager at Infobip, where he is responsible for CPaaS Digital Channels and has dedicated almost three years focusing on RCS Business Messaging. His journey in mobile messaging began in 2005 at SMS and MMS messaging platform provider Enpocket, which was later acquired by Nokia. During his tenure at Nokia, he also contributed to their emerging mobile advertising platform.

Dave has been immersed in the mobile space, spending the majority of his time as Director of the agency Movement. There, he collaborated with high-profile brands such as Coca-Cola, Vodafone, Clarins, and Virgin Media to define and develop their mobile experiences. 

During his tenure at Infobip, Dave has focused on developing and scaling the company’s RBM capability, collaborating closely with Google, Carriers, Brands, and Industry Partners.

Outside of work, Dave is a husband and father of two (adults!) and is passionate about football, which he has played since a young age. He has also coached youth and adult teams for nearly 20 years, making football a significant part of his life alongside his family.

About The Series

This is the eleventh installment in the “One Expert, One Topic” series, where field experts select a topic and share essential insights using Matt Abrahams’ What/So-What/Now-What format. Presented in written form, it allows you more time to absorb the topic and guides you on where to go for further learning. Writing is both challenging and time-consuming; we are grateful to our contributors for sharing their wisdom in this format.

Topics in this contribution: RCS Business Messaging, WhatsApp, OTT channels, Apple, iOS devices, GSMA Universal Profile, India, LATAM, Western Europe, US, APAC, Africa, SMS, WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, conversational messaging, AI, Telecom, Google, 10DLC number, shortcode, KYC, brand approval, use-case verification, Infobip, GSMA, Google Jibe, The Mobile Ecosystem Forum, Mobile Squared.

What

As RCS Business Messaging looks increasingly likely to be able to achieve its original promise of a rich messaging upgrade on SMS as a Telco owned channel, so the ecosystem needs to find solutions to some of those factors that will inhibit scale.  What can we learn from WhatsApp and other OTT channels, and how can we avoid some of the pitfalls we have seen in SMS, without compromising the core principles of the channel?

Since Apple first announced that iOS devices will support RCS in their briefly worded release in November 2023 the Business Messaging ecosystem has eagerly anticipated further update. In the WWDC Keynote address on Monday 10th June and subsequent release, there was more teasing on the topic – a short confirmation that the GSMA Universal Profile 2.4 would be supported in iOS 18 from September 2024. 

Still no explicit public confirmation of RCS Business Messaging (RBM) support, but with the expectation that this will be coming, even if not universally from the outset, we are likely to see one of the major barriers to wider adoption of the channel being removed.

But that does not mean all barriers are removed.

There is without doubt an emboldening of the ecosystem and strong confidence that RBM will see the growth that has eluded it to date.  Already an increasing number of Brands are using the channel, centered on hotspots in India, LATAM and Western Europe, and we are seeing activity extend beyond just the migration of existing 1-way SMS use cases.

Continued growth will be dependent on how both sides of the ecosystem are catalysed: firstly the supply side, with c.25% of carriers having enabled RBM there is still limited availability in many key markets and regions, including the likes of the US and much of APAC and Africa; and secondly the demand side, with the need to provide as frictionless way for brands to leverage the channel – particularly as we move beyond direct aggregator-brand relationships and into the very fat and long tail of the partner, wholesale and reseller markets.

So What 

“SMS is Dead, Long Live RCS!”

Well, not quite.

Certainly, talk of the demise of SMS is not new. With the growth of over-the-top (OTT) messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Viber and Telegram imparting pressure from one side, and consumer’s lack of trust (driven by fraudulent and bad actors) and carrier pricing (particularly of international traffic) squeezing from the other, the growth of SMS traffic has slowed, and analysts predict that this will plateau and in due course decline in coming years.

So carriers, if not already feeling the pinch, will be starting to look further ahead at the threats to their messaging revenue.

And although “conversational” messaging/commerce has been replaced as the buzzword du jour by “AI”, consumer’s receptiveness to communicating with brands via messaging is rising, and we can expect this trend to only continue and consumers to show increasing preference for engaging with brands via messaging channels.

It is vitally important that Telecoms play an active part of the messaging ecosystem, rather than ceding this role to the OTTs.  Only a carrier-lead ecosystem governed by Telecom regulators can provide the degree of governance, and with that consumer and Brand trust, that a robust ecosystem needs.

But carriers need a reason to hop on the train. There is lingering concern that rather than introduce a new revenue stream, RBM will mainly result in the movement of their SMS revenues, and with that a related lack of certainty about what the medium to longer term potential for RBM to bring new use cases into the Telco messaging space will be.  And whilst with the eventual decline of SMS traffic will come, and so bring a reduction in the operating costs of the channel, these won’t be going too far too soon, and so carriers will have limited scope to drive savings with the reduction in infrastructure that this migration of traffic should bring.  

So a strong, and ideally partner-connected, GTM approach will be needed to help ensure carriers maximise the opportunity that the channel brings. We see how, where the OTT players engage with and actively support partners in their GTM efforts, that this helps to accelerate adoption.  And the same applies with RBM – where carriers work collaboratively in a joined-up manner and alongside Google (as the channel’s back-bone) and the tier one aggregators, it brings demonstrable benefits.

Whilst trust is a cornerstone of the channel, there is another side to the equation here, in the level of compliance that is needed for a Brand to onboard to the channel.  We already see the requirements that are placed on brands and aggregators to switch on a 10DLC number in the US or a shortcode in the UK, for example.  The mandatories that will be required (KYC, brand approval, use-case verification etc) will only be tighter and more widely required for RBM.  How carriers and their verification partners plus Google and aggregators, manage these processes, particularly whilst maintaining the anonymisation that resellers often require, in as frictionless a way as possible will play a large part in promoting the channel’s growth.  And this is  particularly relevant down the long-tail of brands who want to use business messaging.  The currently fragmented, and often offline approach across carriers, to brand onboarding and verification, when compared to a channel such as WhatsApp which ties-in to a brand’s existing WhatApp business account and a single embedded and API-based onboarding and enablement process, will need to evolve.  Again, we see that in markets where this is a focus for improvement, brand onboarding becomes a shorter and simpler process, and where solutions come into effect which automate this and enable ISVs to support quick and easy onboarding for brands, we will only see adoption of RBM accelerate. 

Now What

With Apple confirming their entry to the RCS ecosystem, and the (strong) expectation that they will also support business messaging, we may very well see that RCS Business Messaging becomes second only to SMS in terms of consumer reach, and with the rich capabilities that OTT channels bring, on top of the branded and verified business accounts, this is quite a compelling offering.

The kind of growth pains I’ve discussed can only be expected – RBM brings together the strengths of SMS and OTT channels and in doing so will invariably have to deal with some of their respective challenges.

That is where industry players such as Infobip have an important role.  Consulting closely with carriers as they enter the channel and supporting market, regional and international GTM programs; whilst working in alignment with Google, the GSMA and other industry stakeholders, we and our peers have a responsibility to inform, educate and learn from each other.

Also by providing solutions which we provide to enable brands and partners to capitalise on the channel for whatever their use case – from ‘pure’ CPaaS capabilities, to solutions which allow the building of rich messaging activations, and allowing brands and consumers to benefit from AI powered chatbots and conversational experiences.

And with the US expected to start lighting-up this year also, we will likely see them learn from both the example of more mature markets such as the UK and Germany and also serve as a real beacon to others that are yet to join the ecosystem.

And with both iOS and the US activated this will be a catalyst for adoption, particularly amongst global brands and platforms.  2024 will certainly be seen as the year that provided the tipping point for the growth of RBM and wider adoption.

Some further light-reading on the topic can also be found here:

The GSMA: https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/technologies/networks/rcs/

Google Jibe: https://jibe.google.com/

Infobip: https://www.infobip.com/rcs

The Mobile Ecosystem Forum: https://mobileecosystemforum.com/

Industry analysts Mobile Squared: https://www.mobilesquared.co.uk