The tech industry has tons of futurists who project and talk about inflection points and other disruptive innovations. The development of futuristic technology has made it common for other innovations to be declared dead by the time they begin. Although texting can be categorized in this line and it is recognized as a basic functionality of a phone where other applications have been developed to improve its capability, texting is still a widely used form of communication even in developed countries.

SMS is a force to reckon with and it is growing at a great pace. For the people who think that SMS is dead, they should think again because SMS is a silent king that will remain on top for a long time. As many experts still choose mobile apps over SMS, companies are reaping the benefits of using SMS.

Although there are cheaper alternatives to SMS, it is a long shot to wait for the death of SMS. Even though mobile apps are a great addition to the mobile market, it is largely used in the first world countries. Mobile phones are not as common in many countries as feature phones which use SMS as its basic mode of communication. This by itself declares SMS as the king of communication on a large scale.

As a global brand, you cannot afford to market only on smartphones because you will be missing approximately 80% of the market.

Some brands are using SMS to accomplish their marketing campaigns successfully, especially when it comes to exclusive offers that are made to subscribers in the event of an offer. The most effective marketing campaigns are short and straightforward, and they include a call to action that is direct, that makes the customer feel like they are being offered a valuable deal that is exclusive to them.

Not everyone feels like text messages can be the ideal platform for communicating an offer as they at times seem like a spam or impersonal mode of communication. Customer support is, however, a one to one experience that allows for a more personal form of communication, and the SMS is an acceptable way of communicating this way. Most companies are not using this line because of the number of communication channels available today.

What is the future of SMS?

Competition is brewing in the chatting field as OTT (Over The Top) service players like WhatsApp are trying to put SMS out of the game, including the widespread use of Instant Messaging services like Blackberry Messenger (BBM), Yahoo Messenger, VoIP services like Skype and others like Facebook Messenger.

Amongst all the chatting applications that exist, WhatsApp is the one that comes close to challenging SMS to take the top crown. Although very many chatting applications exist, there are a couple of things that make you question about the sustainability of these apps. For starters, they are all fragmented and this will not change anytime soon.

Additionally, OTT services depend on smartphone users with a good data plan. But if you look at it, features phones outnumber the smartphones by 5:1 globally. You will also find that you will experience outages on these applications compared to SMS. Although SMS is not that dominant at this point in time, it is still a great player even in the business world.

We are yet to see a rise in the use of SMS as a tool for marketing or customer support in companies. Mobile phones are still expected to grow in numbers and we expect customers to stay informed of the services they use accurately and consistently. At the moment, we have a few companies using SMS to communicate with their clients.

Apart from the use of SMS as a customer service channel, there are companies that have made SMS their core business line. For instance, Miss Bongo Avis is a service that allows people to send a text message comprising of their entire name plus the name of the city they live in. The service then gives a response a few seconds later with some interesting details about your personal life just from those two inputs you have sent to the service. There are other companies that have made SMS as a core business line and not just a notification channel or a customer support line. We hope to see more services taking the SMS platform to a whole new level even with the rising development of mobile apps, just like the way Miss Bongo Avis is doing.