The latest issue of MEF’s eBulletin was released today and turns the spotlight on mobile messaging with an in-depth look at the news, issues and market drivers shaping the enterprise messaging space which includes analyses on global market forecasts, conversational commerce, revenue leakage, and how being consumer-centric improves engagement.

Businesses are rapidly turning to enterprise messaging as a major platform for engaging consumers. Open rates which are so much impressive for the marketing of messages are suitably cited.  But beyond these areas such as notification and authentication in sectors like healthcare and banking as well as relationship building for retailers and brands are driving foward the messaging ecosystem.

Below are 14 outlined statistics that show that growth. Download the full Mobile Messaging eBulletin here for free.

1. Mobile intelligence firm, Mobilesquared, released a Databook showing that the A2P messaging market was worth $12.88 billion in 2015 and in 2020 will rise to $58.75 billion.
2. This same report also indicates that the deployment of more next-generation SMS revenue assurance platforms will witness grey-route messages drop from 65% of the total A2P global traffic in 2015 to 19% by 2020.
3. According to MEF’s messaging report, 65% of consumers communicate with businesses on chat apps; increasing to 76% globally through SMS.
4. Moreover, 1 in 3 users have interacted with financial services company via mobile messaging system with authentication acting as a key driver – 30% of consumers globally have confirmed passwords via text messages.
5. Globally, the financial and banking services and retail sectors are set to be major verticals and contributing more than 40% of the market share for A2P SMS market growth.
6. Elsewhere, Telefonica’s Text Economy Report indicates that retailers, banks, and OTT providers themselves will account for 60% of global A2P messaging traffic by 2017.
7. Consumers prefer SMS. According to the Direct Marketing Association poll, 44% of respondents would rather receive marketing messages and product detail via SMS.
8. Analyst firm Statista forcasts that the A2P messages volume was 1.625 billion in 2015, and by 2018, it will rise to 1.762 billion.
9. Credence Research goes a step further, forecasting two trillion A2P messages in a year by 2017.
10. The global A2P share of SMS traffic has almost doubled in the last five years from 11.7% in 2010 up to 22% in 2015.
11. OpenMarket in collaboration with Portio Research has forecasted that businesses will send over 1.7 trillion A2P messages in 2016.
12. A customer engagement survey by Ovum and Tata Communications indicated that SMS – by a wide margin – remains the preferred way of maintaining contacts with consumers with more than 50% of respondents indicating that they expected their use of email, SMS and social media to increase over the next 12-24 months.
13.  Unsolicited messages do threaten consumer trust. MEF’s 2016 fraud report indicates that 26% of chat app users and 28% of SMS users receive a spam message on a daily basis.  And 33% have received a SMiShing (SMS phishing) message.
14. MEF’s Future of Messaging Working Group estimates that SMiShing alone contributes $680 million to the annual $2 billion fraud cost currently borne by mobile consumers and operators.