Hampshire, UK – 28th October 2025: A new study by global tech strategists Juniper Research has found that over-the-top (OTT) business messaging traffic will grow from 390 billion messages in 2025 to more than 560 billion by 2027.
This substantial two-year growth is attributable to WhatsApp’s aggressive pricing strategy, which offers authentication rates 50–90% lower than traditional A2P SMS one-time passcodes. Juniper Research expects this will enable WhatsApp to rapidly capture market share from network operators.
“By first securing authentication traffic, WhatsApp is laying the groundwork to move into higher-value business messaging. Once enterprises are onboarded for authentication, WhatsApp must upsell to marketing use cases, where termination fees are far higher and the real revenue opportunity lies,” said Molly Gatford, Senior Research Analyst at Juniper Research.
An extract from the report, A2P & Business Messaging Market 2025-2030, is available as a free download.
Mobile Operators Must Respond With New Pricing Strategy
To combat WhatsApp’s pricing foothold, network operators must introduce use case-based pricing for SMS and RCS Business Messaging. To achieve this, Juniper Research advises operators to partner with providers capable of accurately classifying messages by use case at scale using AI-driven tools and behavioural analysis to ensure reliable use case-based billing.
“By adopting a use case-based pricing strategy that is consistent across SMS and RCS, operators will enable enterprises to better assess RCS’s added value over SMS. This helps operators to retain business messaging traffic across these channels and avoid losing market share to OTT platforms,” Gatford concluded.
The new market research suite offers the most comprehensive assessment of the A2P & Business Messaging market to date; providing analysis and forecasts of over 146,000 datapoints, across 61 countries, over five years. It includes a ‘Competitor Leaderboard’ and examination of future market opportunities. Download a free sample.
About Juniper Research
Juniper Research is a global tech strategist firm providing research, data, and forecasting across the fintech, telecoms, and IoT sectors. For over 20 years, Juniper Research has delivered actionable insights that help industry leaders navigate disruption, seize opportunities, and make confident strategic decisions. https://www.juniperresearch.com
Press Contact:
Sam Smith, Press Relations
sam.smith@juniperresearch.com
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