Business RCS messages to hit 485 billion by 2030, as migration from SMS for authentication dominates traffic

A new study by global tech strategists Juniper Research has found the number of business rich communication services (RCS) messages will exceed 485 billion globally by 2030, from 125 billion in 2026; representing impressive growth of 286%.

The research identified growth of RCS, including its support on Apple devices announced in 2024, as driving adoption. 

The research identified that particularly in authentication use cases, businesses are increasingly expected to migrate from SMS to RCS, as this allows for improved verification and branding, without incurring additional costs. The research recommends that communication service providers focus on easy to migrate traffic first, to introduce brands into the RCS ecosystem by providing easy to understand benefits, then upselling onto more beneficial use cases, such as conversational flows.

Retail Seeing Early Adoption, But Healthcare & Banking Growing Rapidly

The report identified retail as being the largest single vertical for business RCS messages through the forecast period; accounting for over 30% of messages sent globally by 2030. However, this represents a decline from over 37% in 2026; reflecting that retail adopted RCS earlier than other verticals. Indeed, healthcare and banking will grow by over 1,000% and 600% respectively by 2030, versus just over 200% for retail; showing how momentum is shifting.

Principal Analyst, Peter Boyland, commented: “Authentication is clearly a major use case within retail for secure customer authentication, but this is also a clear requirement for banks and healthcare providers. Particularly within banking, branding and personalisation is increasingly important to customer retention; making RCS the perfect fit.”

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An extract from the report, RCS for Business Market 2026-2030, is available as a free download.