| NOTAS: | "The communications industry has undergone fundamental step changes since the turn of the century, with each successive five-year period seeing the rise to mainstream of key consumer communications technologies and services. The post-millennium evolution of communications has seen the successive maturation of fixed IP-based communications, mobile IP-based communications (including smartphones, mobile apps, and social media), and app-based communications (including chat apps and tablets). We are now in the fourth five-year period, where the automation of communications is taking hold, resulting in the development of bots for chat apps and the emergent use of artificial intelligence to create digital assistants. Visual communications are also becoming an important channel, driven mainly by chat apps promoting the use of services such as emoji, content sharing, and video calling. This report will provide insight on how the consumer communications market will continue to evolve in 2018, assess how the changes in consumer communications impact all players in the value chain (telcos, service providers, vendors, and enterprises), and highlight potential new revenue opportunities. 2018 is expected to be an important year in the communications industry. There are several systemic changes which will fundamentally alter the industry as we know it. It is important to be aware of how these changes will impact not only communications service providers but also enterprises and vendors that utilize or support these services. These changes include the emergence of a new leader in the chat app space, the growing popularity of the use of APIs, and the stronger and more focused version of RCS, which is more ready to take on chat apps. In 2018 it will be vital for all players in the communications value chain to understand the extent to which consumers are engaging with both traditional messaging and voice services and the enhanced communications services that are primarily offered by chat apps. It is also important for players to understand that chat apps have established themselves as platforms for content and commerce, which will drive revenues in a market where basic communications services are a commodity. In addition, it will be useful to assess how the commoditization of communications stimulates innovation in value-added services and products and how it changes the way that communications services are integrated into an organization’s consumer-facing platforms." |
