NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 25 – Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging is set to transform communication across East Africa, with Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda expected to see substantial adoption.
A new whitepaper from global communications platform Infobip projects that RCS traffic across Africa and the Middle East will increase by over 1,300 percent, from 545 million messages today to 8 billion by 2029.
“RCS offers enterprises and telcos significant advantages. Businesses should leverage Gen AI to create personalized, engaging RCS campaigns that enhance conversion rates,” said Charlotte Palfrey, Senior Analyst at Omdia, which contributed data to the whitepaper.
“Telcos, on the other hand, should work with the messaging ecosystem to increase awareness of RCS benefits among consumers and enterprises.”
Both Application-to-Person (A2P) and Person-to-Person (P2P) RCS messaging are expected to grow substantially.
A2P RCS traffic, where businesses directly communicate with consumers, is forecasted to rise from 1.5 trillion messages in 2024 to more than 6 trillion by 2029, generating $4.2 billion in revenue. P2P messaging will also expand during this period, contributing significantly to RCS’s rising volume.
RCS provides enhanced functionality compared to traditional SMS, allowing Android users to send rich media content, such as text, images, GIFs, and videos.
With Apple’s adoption of RCS in iOS 18, the service now offers cross-platform compatibility, which Omdia estimates will attract 2.5 billion monthly users by the end of 2024.
Infobip’s Messaging-as-a-Platform (MaaP) service enables enterprises and telcos to utilize RCS for enhanced customer engagement, providing benefits like spam control, detailed billing, faster approval processes, and managed services.
As smartphone penetration across East Africa continues to grow—58.3 percent in Kenya, 22 percent in Uganda, and 32.13 percent in Tanzania—businesses stand to gain from RCS’s richer, interactive communication capabilities, opening new opportunities for customer engagement and revenue.
