It all started in 1992 when the first Person-to-Person (P2P) SMS was sent over a GSM Network. This was followed by the introduction of Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS in 2001. People and business took to this new technology like fish to water and SMS (P2P and A2P) witnessed phenomenal growth. In less than a decade SMS traffic grew into the trillions with more than 80% adoption by mobile subscribers.
Then the smartphone was exploded into the scene and people predicted a quick and painful demise of the humble SMS. You could send e mails over the phones now and instant
messengers could send pictures and files. What chance did SMS have against this onslaught? None- the experts predicted. Guess what? It turns out they were all wrong. Enterprises
continued to invest heavily in building SMS infrastructure for customer engagement. Creative and useful use cases were born and SMS flourished more than ever before.
So, why is SMS so hard to kill? Why does it keep growing?
1) It is a simple tool. You don’t need to install it. You don’t need to create and account and activate it. You don’t need to be tech savvy to understand and use it.
2) Its quick , cost effective and very efficient. 90 % messages are read within minutes. You don’t need a data connection or a fancy handset to use it.
3) SMS is agnostic of handset make or service provider… making it universally viable.
4) SMS has very compelling use cases : OTP, Reminders, Advertisements, CRM, Customer Engagement, Public Polls etc…..the list goes on.
5) Worldwide mobile subscribers are still being added and large enterprises continue to expand into rural areas. A large part of the globe still does not have a reliable data coverage. This will further fuel the growth of SMS.
Clearly SMS is in good health, will live long and continue to grow.
