Gupshup crosses 50 mn monthly messages mark on its RCS channel in India

California-based conversational engagement platform Gupshup Wednesday said it registered more than 50 million monthly rich communication services (RCS) business messages sent through its platform in less than six months of the messaging channel’s relaunch in India.

RCS is a rich, two-way conversational messaging feature available within the native messaging application – Google Messages – of Android phones by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Samsung, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi.

Gupshup expects RCS to get a further fillip in 2024 when Apple introduces the feature in its proprietary messaging application, iMessage. RCS’s adoption on Apple devices opens up possibilities for business messaging with features like branding, verification, encryption, two-way chat, and recognizable sender IDs for Apple users, it said.

As a part of the 5G standard, RCS represents the evolution of SMS, encompassing multimedia elements like images, audio, video, and presence, bolstered by enhanced security and encryption.

Gupshup, in particular, said during the festive season, the RCS traffic grew almost three times on its platform. It claims to have more than a billion RCS users globally, and has seen delivery rates of more than 98% and read rates of more than 35% for messages sent through its platform.

Gupsup said RCS is witnessing good interest from companies in sectors such as BFSI, retail/eCommerce, gaming, health & wellness.

BankBazaar, a leading fintech company specialising in distribution of financial products, particularly loans and credit cards, has benefited from an RCS partnership with Gupshup, according to the statement.

“RCS business messaging will revolutionize businesses’ customer communication. With conversational interactions increasingly becoming the norm in business-customer engagement, RCS messaging channel will play a pivotal role in driving meaningful contextual conversations,” said Beerud Sheth, Founder and CEO, Gupshup.