Apple’s integration of Rich Communication Services (RCS) with their September 2024 release of iOS 18 marks a significant shift in the messaging landscape. This move positions RCS Business Messaging as a native channel on both Apple and Android, offering the potential to rival SMS in reach while delivering rich features similar to WhatsApp and other over-the-top (OTT) platforms.
What is RCS again?
RCS is the next-generation SMS, and goes beyond basic text with engaging features like carousels, rich cards, and interactive quick-reply and call-to-action buttons. Some of the main benefits of RCS are:
- Build Trust: Verified senders and anti-spam measures create a secure environment for customer interactions.
- Strengthen Your Brand: Showcase your logo, images, website, and more to keep your brand top of mind.
- Rich Media: Included rich-messaging features like mages, audio, video, rich cards, carousels and more.
- Gain Insights: Advanced analytics provide comprehensive tracking of your campaigns and customer engagement.
- Ensure Delivery: With SMS failover, your messages reach customers even if RCS isn’t available.
RCS is a major upgrade on SMS, and it provides a more interactive and engaging customer experience when used for business communications.
Apple Takes A Major Step
Apple’s decision to embrace RCS across its iPhone and broader device ecosystem is poised to revolutionize how we communicate. Previously, RCS was primarily driven by Google following its acquisition of Jibe Mobile in 2015, focusing largely on the Android environment. While Android boasts a larger user base, RCS adoption was hampered by the need for activation and its limited functionality between Android devices.
Apple’s inclusion of RCS effectively bridges the iOS-Android divide, establishing RCS as a compelling alternative to platforms like WhatsApp. This alignment between Apple and Google on the RCS standard allows their respective users to securely exchange messages without relying on traditional SMS/MMS or OTT solutions.
Expanded Reach
Apple’s entry dramatically expands RCS’s potential reach. Its 30% share of the global smartphone market complements Android’s 4.5 billion devices. With RCS compatibility in iOS 18.0 and later, an estimated 25–30% of iPhones have already updated, creating an addressable base of approximately 540 million users. Combined with Android, this brings the potential RCS user base to over 5 billion. However, it’s important to note that addressable reach doesn’t automatically translate to active usage.
As of 2023, RCS had 1 billion active users, roughly 20% of the Android base, with adoption further limited by mobile operators not yet supporting the technology. Despite these limitations, it is anticipated that Apple’s adoption will accelerate active user growth due to the newfound interoperability between iOS and Android devices.
Challenges
The convergence on a unified RCS standard by both Apple and Google necessitates a new provisioning approach for device authentication. This involves entitlement servers that securely authenticate and activate RCS on devices within supporting mobile networks.
Apple’s RCS adoption underscores a significant impact, providing a considerable boost to the platform’s scalability and network effects. With Apple’s 30% global iPhone market share, particularly strong in advanced economies like the US and Europe, its support broadens RCS’s reach considerably. While RCS, a telco-driven initiative aiming to regain ground from OTT platforms like WhatsApp, is unlikely to supplant them entirely, even a modest increase in RCS usage will be impactful due to the newly enabled Apple-Android interoperability. In the business sphere, RCS Business Messaging (RBM) presents greater revenue opportunities, addressing security concerns like grey market fraud associated with A2P and OTT messaging.
Android, representing 90% of the RCS addressable user base, remains vital for the messaging platform’s growth. With RCS now supporting Apple devices, cross-platform messaging is a reality, incentivizing Android OEMs to innovate and enhance features.