OTTs have made dominant moves in the messaging market in recent years, with many Regulators now being asked by MNOs to regulate OTT activity for fear of losing further revenues. Some MNOs think however that OTT vs A2P SMS is a false dichotomy as they can co-exist successfully. The customers experience is the most important part.

We can see from WhatsApp’s communication last week (below) that they are now testing new A2P SMS functionality. But where does this leave the current A2P SMS Industry?

In our A2P SMS Messaging Market Intelligence report published last week ROCCO has interviewed 26 leading A2P SMS Messaging Vendors to provide an overview of their businesses, revenues, services, outlook and the regional development of the A2P SMS Market.

On the topic of OTT players, they had lots of opinions: 

There is clearly an opportunity to work alongside OTT players, which presents potential new A2P models for MNOs. Some Vendors interviewed in this report state that much is made of the threat from OTT messaging to the A2P messaging market; however, with the arrival of LTE and in the future 5G, the real OTT differentiator can be reduced.

The majority of the Vendors see OTT as an opportunity. In fact, they think that OTTs are a next step for A2P SMS Messaging and not a mere replacement.

Some Vendors we interviewed in this report state that for those players who can securely monetise A2P traffic, OTTs can serve as important traffic generators rather than as a threat: in fact, according to some Vendors, OTT and A2P SMS go hand in hand, where OTTs benefit from the ubiquity, flexibility and reliability of A2P SMS, and the growth of OTT.2

A2P SMS Messaging Market Intelligence Report 2016

This report aims to provide guidance to MNOs and support them in the development of their A2P SMS messaging monetisation and business opportunities. The report sponsored only by ROCCO provides a neutral outlook into the A2P Market.

image2Background

GSM MNOs have been contacting ROCCO for more data regarding A2P SMS Messaging since 2014. ROCCO conducted an A2P SMS Messaging Vendor Performance Research in 2015 where over 175 MNOs gave feedback on A2P SMS Messaging Vendors.

This A2P SMS Messaging Market Intelligence Report provides insights into 26 A2P SMS Messaging Vendors and helps in understanding the services they offer and their outlook on the A2P SMS Messaging Market.
This Report complements our Vendor Performance Report of 2015 in that it reverses the perspective. Where in our Vendor Performance Report we see the MNO view of the Vendors, here we listen to the Vendors, in a balanced way with ROCCO performing a role as neutral mediator to their comments.

It was clear from MNOs feedback in our recent research that there was a lack of education and simple data they needed to work with Vendors such as: who they were, where they were based, what their business model was, how many customers they had, why and when they started their business.

Click here to find out more about this Report

 

WhatsApp’s recent communication: 

Making WhatsApp free and more useful
Nearly a billion people around the world today rely on WhatsApp to stay in touch with their friends and family. From a new dad in Indonesia sharing photos with his family, to a student in Spain checking in with her friends back home, to a doctor in Brazil keeping in touch with her patients, people rely on WhatsApp to be fast, simple and reliable.

That’s why we’re happy to announce that WhatsApp will no longer charge subscription fees. For many years, we’ve asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year. As we’ve grown, we’ve found that this approach hasn’t worked well. Many WhatsApp users don’t have a debit or credit card number and they worried they’d lose access to their friends and family after their first year. So over the next several weeks, we’ll remove fees from the different versions of our app and WhatsApp will no longer charge you for our service.

Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today’s announcement means we’re introducing third-party ads. The answer is no. Starting this year, we will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you wantto hear from. That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls – so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp, while still giving you an experience without third-party ads and spam.

We hope you enjoy what’s coming to WhatsApp, and we look forward to your feedback.

Source: WhatsApp