SMS grey routes are expected to generate massive revenue leakages

SMS grey routes
Image by Aha-Soft | Bigstockphoto

Mobilesquared, a provider of business messaging market intelligence, and Vox Carrier, a pioneering vendor of mobile monetization solutions, have partnered to release a new white paper entitled “Protecting A2P SMS revenues into the roaring 20’s’. The paper, authored by Mobilesquared, provides never before published statistics of the historic and forecasted impact of grey routes on the messaging business from 2010 to 2024.

Key findings include:

  • Of the almost 2 trillion A2P SMS projected to be sent in 2024, just under one-quarter of these will be via grey routes
  • The total opportunity for A2P SMS could reach $27.48 billion in 2024 (based on 100% white route traffic)
  • As we entered the second decade of A2P SMS business messaging, 48% of mobile operators were yet to have deployed a next-generation SMS firewall
  • Between 2020-2024, revenue leakage to grey routes remains unacceptably high, with a cumulative loss of $37.1 billion, or an annual average leakage of $7.69 billion.

“In 10 years the A2P SMS market has thrived and become a key revenue stream for mobile operators monetising white route traffic via their next-generation SMS firewalls. A little over half of mobile operators are doing so today, which means much work is still to be done to make every network secure and every subscriber safe,” said Nick Lane, Founder of Mobilesquared.

Considering the significant impact grey routes have on mobile operators’ business, it is becoming imperative for them to deploy next-generation SMS firewalls. The potential uplift in revenue of such a leading-edge tool is staggering. “Across 3 mobile operators in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with which we partner to implement such a solution, we saw an average immediate uplift in A2P SMS revenue in the order of 413% in the first year, rising to 1,425% in the second year. Truly astonishing,’ said Ehsan Ahmadi, CEO of Vox Carrier. Which is why we partnered with Mobilesquared to write this paper. We believe it is crucial for MNOs to be aware of the importance of next-generation SMS firewalls to realise an immediate uplift of their A2P SMS revenue.”

The white paper concludes by reinforcing that mobile operators must not only consider today’s revenue, but the future. A fully-managed SMS firewall must therefore evolve to protect 5G messaging, whatever form that might take, whether RCS or something different.

The white paper is available for complimentary download here.

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