• Juniper Research has been monitoring communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) developments for years
• CPaaS platforms are increasingly important to enterprises and service providers, especially as telcos expose their network APIs
• Juniper Research has applied multiple criteria to the industry players and identified Infobip as the market leader, putting it ahead of Sinch, Twilio and Vonage

Infobip is the communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) sector player with the most capable, scalable and established operation, according to the Juniper Research Competitor Leaderboard for CPaaS Vendors, which is based on a “robust” assessment of 22 companies offering CPaaS services to enterprises and digital service providers (DSPs). 

The CPaaS sector has been growing in importance and value for years as more and more companies turn to digital platforms to meet their digital communications needs and that trend is going to continue as so-called over-the-top (OTT) services, rich communication services (RCS), multimedia messaging, in-app push notifications and other digital applications grow in popularity. According to the Juniper Research team, the CPaaS sector will be worth $28bn this year and will more than double in size over the next four years to be worth $58bn in 2028.

Even CPaaS-enabled SMS text messaging volumes are still rising, despite the increasing popularity of alternative channels, including OTT applications such as WhatsApp. According to Juniper Research, SMS business messaging traffic volumes via CPaaS platforms hit 400 billion messages in 2023 and will increase by 24% year on year to reach 498 billion this year. However, rising prices and increasing levels of fraud activity in SMS networks will lead to a decline in the use of that particular service.

Despite the expected dip in the use of that traditional service, though, the use of CPaaS platforms is set to grow significantly in the coming years: For example, the Juniper Research team expects the number of A2P (application to person) RCS messages sent globally per year to increase from 2.5 billion in 2024 to more than 75 billion by 2028 now that Apple is supporting RCS on its iOS operating system.

Infobip is currently best placed to support the needs of CPaaS users, according to the research firm, which considered each CPaaS player’s market presence and the “depth of value-added services offered, such as messaging routing and fraud detection services,” the company noted in this announcement. 

As the chart above shows, Sinch and Twilio also ranked in the top three, followed by Ericsson subsidiary Vonage, which has been building momentum in recent months under new CEO Niklas Heuveldop, as telcos seek CPaaS partners that can help them to expose their network APIs and enable the development and availability of new digital applications based on specifications from the GSMA’s Open Gateway initiative – see What’s up with… AT&T & Vonage, cross-carrier APIs, Vodafone & Cohere.

Infobip, though, has been equally active in engaging with telcos as they leverage the Open Gateway specifications – see Brazil goes nuts for network APIs.

To find out more about the role of CPaaS platforms in telco network API strategies, register for our Telco as a Platform Summit, which takes place online on 26 and 27 March and will feature expert speakers from Deutsche Telekom, Telenor, Verizon, Intel, Rakuten Symphony, Wind River and more. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV