Infobip analysed more than 530 billion interactions on its platform between businesses and consumers in 2024 to identify the latest global business messaging trends.

The data suggests Apple’s support for RCS, following its iOS 18 update in late 2024, contributed to a fivefold increase in global RCS traffic, with North America alone seeing a 14x surge.

Businesses worldwide have embraced the channel for highly engaging, two-way customer interactions. Infobip’s data shows a 500% increase in RCS usage year-on-year, with brands leveraging it alongside SMS for a seamless customer journey.

Ivan Ostojić, Chief Business Officer at Infobip, commented:

“RCS is taking off because it works. The branded and verified experience reduces hesitation, while rich visuals capture attention and drive engagement. In A/B tests, RCS rich cards delivered up to 70% higher conversion rates than MMS. More significantly, RCS has driven conversion rates two to three times higher, and sometimes even ten times higher, than standard marketing channels.”

As brands refine their customer engagement strategies, WhatsApp has emerged as a significant channel for conversational marketing, where the channel’s growth has surpassed the growth of SMS and email. Infobip recorded a 41% increase in brands using WhatsApp for marketing, driven by new features enabling seamless purchases within a single chat. The platform also saw significant growth in other chat apps like Telegram, Line, and Viber.

Overall, Infobip saw a 30% increase in the number of brands orchestrating conversational marketing interactions with their customers on its platform.

AI adoption has also increased, according to data from Infobip’s AI Hub. AI-powered chatbots and automation are being widely adopted, particularly in finance and insurance, where security and compliance are paramount.

Businesses increasingly use AI for personalized interactions, fraud prevention, and real-time customer support.

Ivan Ostojić added: “With RCS adoption accelerating and AI transforming customer interactions, 2025 is set to be a pivotal year for conversational messaging.”

Experts at Infobip made this call during a media parley in Lagos this week.

Leading the team, Olatayo Ladipo-Ajai, regional manager at Infobip Nigeria, said that Nigerians, particularly businesses, such as banks, telecommunication companies and other businesses should harness the benefits posed by the RCS to improve their customer experience and reach more customers.

He described Rich Communication Service (RCS) as a mobile messaging protocol that can delivers more interactive mobile text messaging experience than traditional plain-text SMS messages.

He noted that Conversational messaging, in the form of RCS, will enable businesses and brands to communicate more effectively while reaching out, attracting and converting potential customers.

According to him, “RCS is an evolution of SMS, which integrates features from various chat apps into one platform.

“The platform allows the exchange of group chats, PDFs, video, audio and high-resolution images, as well as read receipts and real-time viewing, providing more value than traditional SMS.

“One of its key benefits is that RCS sits on top of the SMS platform, which means it has the same reach and is thus also native on most smartphones”.

On his part, Martin Effiong, Senior Operator Partnership Manager, West Africa, at Infobip, said RCS’s rich media capabilities can provide a foothold for MNOs not only in business communication space but also in the P2P market where OTT players currently dominate.

RCS provides a solution for MNOs to compete with OTT players and claw back some of the revenue they have been missing out on in both the P2P and the lucrative Application-To-Person (A2P) messaging space.

– Effiong

He further described RCS as a rich media capable communication protocol that is an evolution of SMS as a native messaging channel.

“With RCS, mobile operators are able to provide their subscribers, as well as enterprises, with a messaging system that has the capability of sharing and receiving content such as images or videos without the need to download a separate messaging app.

“With many enterprise-focused features such as chatbots or carousels (content slideshows), brands are able to provide a convenient customer engagement channel for various use cases, ranging from tech support to purchases, as part of the conversational commerce paradigm,” he said.

Also speaking, Isaac Akanni, on “Boosting profitability and enhancing deeper customer engagement with conversational banking”, said that RCS is integral to conversational banking which can be seen as an upgraded version of SMS, complete with the rich features of a chat app.

The Rich features include images, videos, and audio files that can be seen in RCS messages and that provide a more engaging and personalised experience for customers.

– Akanni

“It also offers a wide range of features that can improve Customer experience (CX), including interactive functionality that enables customers to make bill payments or balance enquiries, while providing privacy and security through end-to-end encryption.

“The main value of incorporating an RCS channel is that it yields better customer engagement, increases trust and builds long-term customer relationships.

“By sending RCS messages, banks can ensure that customers gain higher visibility of their brand, while also presenting new offers and campaigns in a more effective way, such as information about loans, changing interest rates or new credit cards.

“Banks can also use RCS to send notifications or useful reminders about card activations or payment instructions.

“While RCS is new to the local market, the opportunities it presents are huge and use cases will grow exponentially as the channel gains traction.

“Conversational banking should ultimately provide a seamless flow of conversation to ensure positive CX and manage a host of complex transactions that will lead to a deeply rooted engagement that translates into a long-term relationship between a bank and its customers”.

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