New research by Juniper has revealed that bu 2023, the Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) market will reach £23 billion by 2025, up from about £13 billion in 2022.

Most of the 80% growth, the study says, will be driven by SMEs.

According to their White Paper – Moving Beyond SMS: How CPaaS Will Evolve in 2023 – the number of communication platforms a businesses can offer will be a key measure of success, over the amount of traffic it generates.

Further, as markets become increasingly saturated with CPaaS service provision, CPaaS vendors must expand deeper into the SME sector.

Vendors will likely focus on valuable features from easy payment platforms to AI-based chatbots.

Sam Barker, a research author, said: “CPaaS vendors now compete on the capabilities of managed services to attract SMEs. As many of these smaller enterprises lack in-house development facilities, they will choose the CPaaS platform that provides the most comprehensive managed services for rich media channels.”

Growth Factors 

The research also predicts at CPaaS platforms and vendors will have to be responsible for their own security, and, in order to succeed, implement advanced anti-fraud detection systems.

Implementing ID Networks for customers to safely and fluidly share data and information will also be vital to attracting more consumers to a platform.

Juniper also predicts the consolidation of CPaaS and CCaaS communication lines, which are consistently blurred. CCaaS, essentially is inbound communication from the user to the enterprise, whereas CPaaS is outbound from the enterprise to the user.

By creating an omnichannel experience, enterprises will be better able to regulation each line and ensure the same quality of service is offered across all channels.

While overall CPaaS platforms will need to continually prove themselves capable of handing rich media traffic over a variety of services, Juniper predicts that in-messaging payments will be a determining factor in setting certain platforms apart.

Customers are looking for ease – a one stop platform to handle everything, especially for businesses. Developing in-messaging payments will require close following of regulations, but could be vital to grow a consumer base among businesses.

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Emerging Channels

SMS is predicted to stay the dominate channel for CPaaS revenue, accounting for 50% by 2024.

Part of SMS’s continued right as a cornerstone of comms is it’s established reliability in termination for traffic in Multi-factor authentication.

However, other channels, like email and social media, are also predicted to expand, and account for 40% of the 2025 market value.

Platforms failing to include managed services for rich media in their three-year plans risk missing out of the substantial growth predicted for the market.

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