Interview: Sinch on the Trends and Challenges in the RCS for Business Market

May 2026

Telecoms & Connectivity

Ardit Ballhysa

Senior Research Analyst

Following Sinch’s win for Best RCS Monetisation Solution at Juniper Research’s Future Digital Awards, we sat down with Francois Boshoff, Vice President Strategy, Product & Marketing at Sinch, to explore the rapidly evolving landscape of RCS for Business and the growing role mobile operators play in enabling and monetising the channel.   How has brand adoption of Rich Communication Services (RCS) for Business evolved over the past 12 months, and what trends are shaping the opportunity for mobile operators today?

Based on Sinch's perspective from the last 12 months, the adoption of RCS for Business by brands has accelerated; moving from a future possibility to a present-day strategic imperative. This evolution has been primarily catalysed by Apple's landmark decision to support RCS, which has effectively unified the messaging ecosystem across both Android and iOS devices. As a result, the conversation among businesses has shifted from ‘if’ they should adopt RCS to ‘when’ and ‘how’ they can best leverage its capabilities. 

Brands are now looking beyond basic one-way SMS and are increasingly implementing rich, two-way conversational experiences to engage customers at every stage of their journey. This is where Sinch's broad expertise - including our Engage platform and Conversations API - comes into play; enabling operators to offer a comprehensive suite of solutions. The clear business case for this shift is supported by compelling performance metrics, with Sinch reporting that brands are achieving three to seven times higher click-through rates with RCS compared to traditional SMS; proving its effectiveness and driving further adoption.

This surge in brand adoption is shaping several key trends and opportunities for mobile operators today. The foremost trend is the opportunity for monetisation through simplification. While the RCS ecosystem offers immense potential, its operational complexity can be a barrier. Sinch addresses this with its comprehensive RCS for Operators services; designed to handle the ‘heavy lifting’ for operators. By managing complexities such as financial settlements, agent approvals, and regulatory compliance, this service allows operators to seamlessly launch and monetise their RCS offerings without significant upfront investment or operational overhead. This enables them to focus on growing their enterprise client base and capturing revenue from the increasing brand demand.

Another critical trend shaping the opportunity for operators is the creation of a trusted and secure messaging ecosystem. In an environment where spam and fraud are significant consumer concerns, RCS provides a vital solution through its mandatory verification process for business senders. Mobile operators are central to this process; positioning them as gatekeepers of a secure and premium communication channel. By ensuring that only legitimate, branded messages reach consumers, operators can enhance the value of their network, build subscriber trust, and differentiate RCS as a secure channel. This focus on security is a key value proposition that helps drive enterprise adoption, which, in turn, fuels operator revenue and solidifies their role in the future of business messaging. With the addition of Sinch Agentic Conversations, operators can further enhance this trust by enabling more sophisticated and secure interactions; showcasing the full potential of a rich, conversational ecosystem.

What are the main complexities mobile operators face when launching RCS for Business, and how does the Sinch RCS for Mobile Operators solution simplify and accelerate deployment?

The wholesale model for RCS for Business is fundamentally different from traditional application-to-person (A2P) SMS. The involvement of partners such as Google, and the introduction of new processes such as mandatory agent approvals and new billing models, creates a more complex, multi-party ecosystem. The complexities span both the technical build-out and the commercial go to market. Our solution is designed to address and remove these roadblocks by simplifying the entire RCS for Business lifecycle into three core pillars: Onboarding, Monetisation, and Control.

The first pillar is Onboarding. To enable the secure zero-touch authentication that mobile devices require, an entitlement server is a mandatory part of the RCS for Business ecosystem. Our Sinch RCS Entitlement server is built to meet mobile device vendors’ requirements; authenticating subscribers to enable RCS service access.

Next, is the pivotal challenge and opportunity of monetising RCS for Business. This is a multi-layered challenge that we address with our complete solution. Monetisation begins by enabling a flow of traffic from legitimate brands. Our RCS Agent Approvals service removes this first bottleneck to revenue by managing the entire vetting and approval process; allowing operators to quickly and safely onboard the brands that generate monetisable traffic. Once brands are active, our Rating and Billing service acts as the financial engine; enabling mobile operators to capture the RCS channel’s full value by applying pricing models adapted for RCS, such as those based on conversations, call to action, and content awareness.

To further accelerate monetisation, Sinch offers two more components to help drive brand adoption and traffic. Our Engage RCS solution provides a complete customer engagement suite. It empowers enterprise customers to build their own campaigns and manage the full spectrum of RCS interactions - from rich marketing campaigns to fully conversational experiences for commerce and support - all with the telco-grade control and analytics a mobile operator needs. For mobile operators who want the easiest path to revenue, we offer our RCS Wholesale partnership. In this model, we run the entire commercial business on their behalf; delivering a predictable revenue stream.

Finally, the operator should control their RCS for Business service. This is the fundamental role of our Sinch Operator Messaging-as-a-Platform (MaaP) Gateway. It acts as the central control and enforcement point for all RCS business messaging; providing this control through two key functions. Firstly, its granular policy controls allow for active traffic management, quota enforcement, and real-time abuse prevention. Secondly, it provides the full transparency needed for strategic oversight by capturing all relevant data for every message and conversation. This rich data is foundational for both commercial and operational control. It provides the detailed call detail records (CDRs) required to enable sophisticated billing models, such as charging on call to action and content, and is also the source for our Reports and Analytics platform. This platform presents the data as a single source of truth for all RCS for Business activity - from high-level traffic trends to detailed reports; giving the operator the clear, consolidated view needed to manage partners and steer the business effectively.

By providing expert solutions for onboarding, monetisation, and control, Sinch takes the complexity off the operator’s plate; allowing them to launch a secure, fully-featured RCS business much faster.

What are the biggest obstacles preventing mobile operators from fully monetising RCS for Business, and how does Sinch help them maximise revenue from the channel?

The biggest obstacle isn't a single technical problem; it's the challenge of building a solid, profitable business case for RCS from day one. Operators need to know how they can enter this market efficiently, mitigate risks, and scale revenue effectively. Our partnership model is designed to address exactly these commercial questions.
We see three key ways we help operators maximise their revenue.

Firstly, we de-risk the initial market entry. A significant upfront investment in new, complex components - such as an entitlement server, or building an internal team to handle processes such as agent approvals - can be a major barrier. Our managed service model removes this obstacle. By delivering these essential functions as a service, we drastically lower the upfront investment and operational risk; allowing operators to launch with a lean, efficient model.

Secondly, we provide the engine for sophisticated revenue generation. Legacy billing systems limit operators to simple pricing. To truly monetise RCS, you need to capture the value of richer interactions. Our Rating and Billing service acts as that flexible financial engine; enabling the advanced commercial models - based on conversations or rich content - that are necessary to maximise the revenue from every interaction.

Finally, we act as a growth engine for the entire ecosystem. A channel is only valuable if there is traffic on it. Leveraging our unique position as a global leader in enterprise messaging, we actively drive growth in two ways: we migrate traffic from our existing global base of enterprise clients to the RCS channel, and we empower the operator's local market with our RCS Engage platform. By stimulating traffic from both global and local sources, we don't just provide a solution; we help build a thriving market for our partners.

How is fraud evolving across the messaging ecosystem, and how does Sinch ensure mobile operators can deliver a secure, trusted RCS for Business environment?

Fraud in the broader messaging ecosystem, particularly SMS, has become a significant problem. The open, unverified nature of SMS has led to an explosion in smishing and spam, which erodes customer trust and devalues the channel.

RCS for Business was designed from the ground up to solve these exact problems. It isn't just an evolution of messaging; it's an evolution in trust. The entire ecosystem is built on a multi-layered security framework that ensures a trustworthy environment, and our role is to help operators implement and manage every layer of this framework.

The first layer is ‘verified senders’. Unlike SMS, where any sender can be spoofed, RCS requires every brand to go through a rigorous agent approval and brand verification process. This ensures that when a message arrives with a brand's logo and a verification checkmark, the subscriber can be confident it's from a legitimate source. We manage this entire vetting process; creating a foundational layer of trust.

The second layer is ‘verified users’. Security also depends on knowing that the person receiving the message is a legitimate subscriber on a secure device. Our RCS Entitlement Server, delivered as a managed service, handles the critical authentication process between the device and the operator's network; meeting the strict requirements of the device ecosystem and ensuring a secure connection at both ends.

The final layer is ‘continuous, operator-centric control’. Even with verified senders, an operator needs control over their own network. This is the role of our Sinch Operator MaaP Gateway. It provides the tools to manage 'content drifting' by monitoring traffic to ensure it adheres to the operator's specific commercial and local policies. It acts as the operator's own guardian; providing a level of granular control that the global ecosystem’s checks do not offer.

By implementing and managing these three layers of security - verified senders, verified users, and continuous network control - we help operators deliver an RCS channel that is fundamentally more secure and trustworthy than SMS; preserving its long-term value for both brands and subscribers.

How do you expect the RCS for Business landscape to develop over the next 12 months, and what innovations is Sinch bringing to support operators in capturing this growth?

Over the next 12 months, we expect the RCS for Business landscape to develop significantly, characterised by a strategic shift away from basic, one-way messaging towards rich, conversational experiences that are user initiated at various points throughout the customer lifecycle journey. As businesses and brands look to leverage RCS for everything from initial discovery and sales enquiries to post-purchase support and loyalty engagement, Sinch is committed to pioneering innovations which remove friction and empower our partners to capture this growth. To spearhead this evolution and support operators, we are bringing forward significant innovations in AI infrastructure, operational efficiency, and channel integrity. This commitment to maintaining a trustworthy, problem-free ecosystem is laser-focused on simplifying the path to success for both enterprises and the operators who serve them. Our Engage platform and Conversations API are at the forefront of this; providing the tools for operators to offer these advanced capabilities.

A key innovation is the release of Sinch Agentic Conversations, which provides the foundational AI infrastructure for the next generation of conversational RCS experiences. We have built a robust framework that allows businesses to either bring their own custom AI agents or leverage our powerful Chatlayer platform to build and deploy them. This flexibility empowers brands to create highly sophisticated and personalised interactions - from managing complex sales enquiries to providing instant, automated support - directly within the native messaging channel. For operators, this translates into new revenue streams, as they can offer a channel capable of supporting the advanced, AI-driven conversations that businesses are increasingly demanding. 

In addition to enabling these next-generation experiences, Sinch is acutely focused on removing practical barriers and protecting the core pillar of trust within the channel. To address the complexities of getting started, we've developed proprietary operational tools that streamline the critical, yet often cumbersome, onboarding process. For instance, launching a new RCS agent previously faced a key bottleneck in creating demonstration videos for operator approval; a step our internal tools now automate to drive significant efficiency. This accelerates a brand's time to market and allows operators to onboard clients faster. Critically, we underpin this with sophisticated monitoring and spam prevention tools that proactively keep the channel clean. For mobile operators, this protects their network and ensures that RCS remains a premium, secure channel; fostering the long-term confidence and investment from the world's leading brands. Our holistic approach - from the Conversations API to Agentic Conversations - ensures that operators can offer a complete, secure, and future-proof RCS solution.

Sinch empowers mobile operators to unlock the full potential of RCS. Simplifying the complexities of onboarding, monetization, and control, turning rich, conversational messaging into a secure and profitable revenue stream.

To learn more about Sinch and their RCS for Business services, visit https://sinch.com/telco/rcs-for-mobile-operators/.