Yet again no trip to Las Vegas this year for me. But Las Vegas waits for no one, just as time and indeed business messaging do.
Whilst the recent record high temperatures in Las Vegas (think 48C) might have dropped back a couple of degrees, the same cannot be said about business messaging transaction volumes. According to Juniper Research, SMS business messaging volumes alone in 2020 reached an enormous 3.5 trillion globally, and increase of 7% over 2019. Through 2021 they are only going in one direction from there too. Up.
Times might be uncertain but the world of SMS text messaging where businesses are concerned is turning out to be anything but. In fact, it’s turning out to be a sure thing. Now how many times have I heard that one in Las Vegas, never mind elsewhere…
Yet business SMS is indeed a great bet. As you know yourselves, SMS may be flat, grey and from a visual perspective perhaps regarded as a little ‘challenging’ to the Apple fans out there, but it pays the bills time and again. But so many companies actually don’t like to admit they are built on something that is almost 30 years old.
They hide behind the name ‘cloud communications provider’ because they think it’s more fashionable (but does anybody out there on the street REALLY know what that means?) and throw the phrase ‘omnichannel’ around like candy at a kid’s birthday party. If you actually know what real omnichannel business messaging is, then you’d know that precious few companies can actually deliver it up successfully.
Embrace what you are I say. If you are an aggregator say it. Use clear language. And if your business is built on SMS, don’t be shy about shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t. Vox secure and monetize SMS and Voice. There, I said it.
If any corporate transaction shows the world the true value of business SMS right now, it’s the purchase of Zipwhip by Twilio for the princely sum of $850 million, announced on May 17th. And “who’s Zipwhip?” we hear you asking.
Few outside of the business messaging industry in the USA had heard of Zipwhip yet that did not stop the largest company in the sector globally (Twilio, with a market valuation of $50 billion itself) from springing some big bucks for it. In 10 years Zipwhip grew their team to nearly 300 employees, text enabled over 5 million landline, VoIP and toll-free phone numbers and helps over 30,000 businesses engage their customers and drive growth through texting.
Now for me, the word to really focus on in the previous paragraph was ‘landline’. SMS to landline. Indeed. It can work, does work and makes money. Why do so few outside of the US do anyting with it? I have absolutely no idea. It comes across to me as a great opportunity yet so many countries are not set up for it properly at all.
This acquisition was exactly one of the those I had the pleasure of talking about when interviwed about M&A activity in the sector during Capacity Media’s Messaging & SMS World 2021 event a couple of weeks ago. Sinch came in on June 9th and paid $1.3 billion for MessageMedia. And so the cycle continues.
So there you have it folks. If anybody tells you it’s impossible to build a decent, valuable business based on SMS alone then I think you need to tell them to do a better job of researching the facts. Whilst emotion has been allowed to take over much of life today with facts being thrown aside, I strongly advise you to never forget or underestimate the power of good old business SMS. It’s here to stay for a good while longer too. Enjoy the ride.
Written by Ehsan Ahmadi, CEO and Founder of Vox Carrier